
Libra, 2 Weeks In - simonebrunozzi
https://www.facebook.com/notes/david-marcus/libra-2-weeks-in/10158616513819148/
======
Lucadg
This is the part where they reveal how they plan to negotiate with regulators:

"At the core, we believe that a network that helps move more cash transactions
— where a lot of illicit activities happen — to a digital network that
features regulated on and off ramps with proper know-your-customer (KYC)
practices, combined with the ability for law enforcement and regulators to
conduct their own analysis of on-chain activity, will be a big opportunity to
increase the efficacy of financial crimes monitoring and enforcement"

In other words: let us do Libra and we'll help you win the war on cash.

The biggest blow on privacy in the world's history, brought to you buy
Facebook.

~~~
sametmax
Not just privacy. Democracy in general.

No cash mean you can't do anything that has not been validated by the state
first.

It means kids will have less options to foul around without the parents
checking it.

It means you won't be able to pay in a gay bar anonymously.

It means any new (and hence controversial) political concept will have no way
to financially grow to acceptance.

It means no living off the grid.

It means hobo will be even more excluded.

It means in case of crisis, the financial system is paralyzed.

It means if powerful people wants something bad for you, you can't be on the
run.

It means easy censorship against unpopular activists or artists.

It means no way to test a weird idea off the record to see if it's worth it.

It means no escape if the gov raises taxes in an unjust way.

It means no workaround for paralyzing bureaucracy.

It means no grandpa selling his home grown vegetable at the farmer market on
the side.

It means everything you do, where you do, at what time and with whom is
tracked, permanently recorded, then passed to algo or AI for analysis.

No grey area. No margin of error.

Just the immovable, inflexible structure of current society imposing itself to
everybody.

~~~
api
There has never in all of history been totalitarianism like what is possible
now. We are building the technical infrastructure for our own total
enslavement.

Of course it makes me wonder if this is just history repeating in some sense.
People came to the new world in part to flee European monarchist tyrannies.
Now people will go to space to flee the Earth technocracy.

~~~
swift532
Only it's a bit easier and cheaper (en masse) to go to the New World instead
of space which will likely be quite exclusive.

~~~
api
Getting to America in the 1500s and 1600s was very expensive and came with a
high risk of death. I'm not sure how it would compare to a ride on SpaceX's
upcoming Starship but it was definitely tough. People found all kinds of ways
to finagle or mortgage (e.g. indenture) a voyage. Eventually the price dropped
of course.

------
IAmGraydon
I'm asking this in all seriousness. Why would anyone want to use Libra?

Let's say a consumer wants to buy something. They can either pay with "normal"
money in one step or they can use their phone to convert their money into
Libra and then make the purchase with Libra. Why would they go through the
extra step(s)? Am I to believe that the benefit is "lower transaction fees"?
Because if so, Libra doesn't have a chance. Only vendors, not customers, see
those fees directly. Even if the customers did see them, they aren't big
enough to sway the inertia of the way things are.

In the real world, the vast majority cares very little about things like
decentralization. They don't care about how the banking system works and who
controls the flow of money. They want to swipe their card and get what they
want. Anything more than that is just an obstacle. At least BTC has the
benefits of pseudo-anonymity and speculative appreciation. Libra has neither.

Beyond all of this, people like to have control over their money. To feel they
have control, people need to have understanding. Paper is easy to understand.
Cryptocurrency makes people nervous. Facebook REALLY makes people nervous. Put
the two together and it will feel like a big risk to users.

I'm an open minded guy, but I don't see it. Someone please enlighten me as to
why this won't be Facebook's biggest failure. Why would anyone want to use
Libra?

~~~
spaced-out
There are millions of people around the world that are unbanked. Especially in
3rd world countries, they get on the internet by buying the cheapest possible
smartphone and data with cash. I was just in the Philippines, and I saw places
selling access to only Facebook and WhatsApp, in increments of 30MB of data,
for cash.

The problem for Facebook is that these people can't buy anything online,
because they don't have a bank account. If Libra launches successfully and
remains stable, those same places selling X MB of data for cash, could easily
start selling Libra too.

That's what so many people here are missing. Facebook isn't targeting this at
people who have credit cards, Paypal accounts, and know what Bitcoin is,
they're targeting the day laborer in a rural, 3rd world country, who might be
enticed to part with some of their spending money for some Chinese plastic
trinket that they never could have bought before, because none of the few
stores in a 100 mile radius stock stuff like that.

~~~
umanwizard
> If Libra launches successfully and remains stable, those same places selling
> X MB of data for cash, could easily start selling Libra too.

Why couldn’t they sell prepaid Visa cards, or Venmo/PayPal (or whatever is the
local equivalent) top-ups?

I get that having access to brokers that will sell a globally recognized hard
currency for local cash is super useful, especially if it’s in electronic
form.

I don’t get why it’s useful for it to be a blockchain, or why Facebook is the
most likely company to run it successfully. When I ask people this the answer
seems to be some hand-waving about regulation, but if this is hard for Venmo
and PayPal to offer because of regulation, why would throwing around the word
“blockchain” magically make it any easier for Facebook?

~~~
seventhtiger
Selling prepaid visas misses the point. The issue is not that those in poverty
in developing nations can't spend their money. The issue is that they can't
receive my money. It's more important that I can buy a lot of Libra and hire
them, and they can cash out or use it directly.

------
simonebrunozzi
I have been following Libra very closely, and have read their white paper
twice.

There have been a few good discussions here on HN when it launched [0], but I
think most of these have been very biased against anything Facebook-related.

I find the launch of Libra a really interesting "experiment", with potentially
big negative or positive consequences for the entire world.

Right now, it's really hard to judge on the technical merits (e.g. the Move
language, or the architecture, or how they're going to transition to a truly
permissionless and decentralized consensus).

However, I think that it's wise to follow Libra's evolution with attention, as
it might, and probably will, have consequences in our lives.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210791)

~~~
hajile
When you're talking about controlling money, politics matter more than
"technical merit".

Libra is invite only and they invited their business friends.

Libra consortium is based in Switzerland, so the businesses involved have
guaranteed essentially zero government oversight.

Libra's owners have complete control over how much currency, the currency
exchange rate, and even inflation rates (note that inflation is actually a tax
on wealth).

I can't regulate it. I can't get my government to regulate it. I can't get a
non-partisan consortium to regulate it (eg, Bitcoin). Businesses proven to put
profits first have complete control. I have everything to lose and nothing to
gain.

I don't care about the technical merit; everything about this stinks.

EDIT: and all that is before the privacy aspect. While accounts may be
"anonymous", Facebook can use their data to identify you anyway. I don't like
these big date companies tracking my friends or website visits. I certainly
don't want them tracking my money too.

There's also the wrongthink aspect. Recent leaks from different companies seem
to show them exerting political power and banning dissent. My political
opinions may align with their now, but I'd bet anything that sooner or later,
I'll disagree with them on something. I don't want my financial stability
based on a platform that punishes me for thinking or believing "the wrong
thing" (which could just be saying something critical about the companies in
control).

Libra giving economic power to companies is straight out of fascism.

~~~
carlosdp
> Libra is invite only and they invited their business friends.

That's a big assumption. They were able to _get_ their business friends to
sign on, probably because they are already friends. I'm sure they asked a lot
of other groups that were more hesitant, it would have made the initial
announcement much more powerful.

Also important to note non-profits, NGOs, and universities are included, and
they don't have to pay the $10m buy-in.

> and all that is before the privacy aspect. While accounts may be
> "anonymous", Facebook can use their data to identify you anyway...

The way Libra is designed, that would probably be a lot more trouble than it
is worth. Tracking methods without direct trackers (like 3rd-party cookies)
work because there are many data points. Like in browser fingerprinting, you
have user agents, JS feature availability, history, etc.

With Libra, you only have an account address and transactions to other
anonymous account addresses. One dimension of data like that would be very
very hard to trace back to the user, without direct participation from many
many merchants.

> There's also the wrongthink aspect.

Fair, however afaik only 1 of the 28 current companies (Facebook) has this
attribute.

~~~
hajile
The initial business group is invite only. My understanding is that they get
to decide who else (if anyone) joins.

The real money in banking is in giving good loans. The more personal and
immediate your info, the better the loan you can make. Reduced losses lower
interest rates or boost profits. Facebook data is the big reason this all make
sense for them.

Facebook's anonymous claim is simply a lie. Most people will have known
accounts at signup. Even if not, the record of their spending habits ties in
with their Facebook habits. For the rest, touching known accounts in the
network means you know them or have contacted them. Even a very small number
of transactions should be enough to identify the user.

------
0xDEFC0DE
>With Libra, anyone with a $40 smartphone and connectivity will have the
ability to securely safeguard their assets, access the world economy, transact
at a much lower cost, and over time access a whole range of financial
services.

Bad actors will lift old exploitative models into Libra's ecosystem: payday
loans with huge interest rates, wallet services that force a deposit and allow
you to overspend and charge fees when you do, sign up people for accounts and
services that they don't want and make commissions. Or maybe just
wallet/business services that straight up scam people and disappear with no
repercussions. The thing you set out to kill will just come back with a new
flavor. Plus it's even easier now since you can do it all with a single click!

Then someone has to decide what to do with bad actors involved with Libra and
allocate resources to actually enforce some actions against them (legislative,
the cops, server bans, ISP bans, etc.). Now you've got those services paid by
tax dollars dealing with a corporate currency and taking time away from other
enforcement actions.

All of this is going to happen at the juicy, vulnerable threshold where the
technical controls interface with the human element. I probably won't ever
hack Libra/Move itself, but the human part is still there. If I can actually
manage to get away with the crime and transact with a fake identity, it can't
be reversed.

Bonus: that same $40 phone stops getting updated by a phone carrier and some
drive-by malware swipes all of your LibraBucks with a corrupt text message and
no one can reverse the transaction. Or maybe that Bloomberg supply-chain
attack article will finally become a reality once there's enough economy
behind Libra.

If this is widely adopted, it's going to have a pretty steep learning curve
and plenty of real losses for everyone.

~~~
skybrian
Wouldn't much of this also be true of other kinds of phone-based payment, such
as M-Pesa?

~~~
0xDEFC0DE
Probably. M-Pesa sounds like a bank itself. Are deposits insured in any way?
Do they work with victims to restore their account balances?

------
mromanuk
Call me pessimist, but cartelized private global corporations owning and
“printing” money can only bring bad things. It is centralized and is
controlled by an elite.

~~~
whatshisface
The Fed isn't? It has more private board members than appointed board members,
and some have argued that it has consistently prioritized the interests of the
banks at the expense of encouraging leverage like cash is going out of style.
This is closer to a battle between west coast elites and east coast elites
than it is about the people versus the elites.

~~~
mbesto
Even if it isn't fully apparent, the people can vote out a president that
controls the Fed. There is no such option to the "100 member companies". Also,
the Fed is US only...so there's that.

The scary thing about Libra is that it truly has the potential for global-
scale "boil the frog" ramifications.

~~~
javert
> Even if it isn't fully apparent, the people can vote out a president that
> controls the Fed.

The president of the United States does _not_ control the Fed, if that's what
you're saying. The current U.S. president is extremely unhappy with the
current Fed chairman and has repeatedly demanded that the Fed alter its
policies, to no avail.

> Also, the Fed is US only...so there's that

The U.S. dollar is pretty global.

~~~
mbesto
> The current U.S. president is extremely unhappy with the current Fed
> chairman and has repeatedly demanded that the Fed alter its policies, to no
> avail.

And yet he nominated him. What's your point? AFAIK he also technically has the
power to fire him too.

> The U.S. dollar is pretty global.

Can you use the dollar to buy food at a foodstand in Germany? No. Just because
certain aspects of the global economy are driven by the dollar, doesn't mean
everything can be transacted with it. Libra is meant for companies to be able
to transact business globally under one currency.

~~~
pjc50
> Can you use the dollar to buy food at a foodstand in Germany? No

Probably not, but in a tourist place you might succeed. And there's still
plenty of places where the US dollar is more welcome than local currency. It's
hard money, regardless of the politics of the Fed.

------
lanrh1836
My biggest question right now is how many people will want to use Libra enough
to pass stringent KYC checks for a wallet like Facebook’s Calibra? You’ll need
to give Facebook much more information than they have on a user today, such as
photo ID, address, SSN, etc (depending on country).

My cynical view is that Calibra is actually the real value to Facebook here,
and they are betting that it will be the biggest wallet by far. It will allow
Facebook to reconcile millions if not billions of identities in ways they have
not been able to to this date.

------
xiphias2
> Is this really a blockchain? It’s not open. It’s not decentralized! > While
> the initial mechanism by which organizations can run a node and become a
> member of the Libra Association, is definitely not as open as, say Bitcoin,
> where anyone can participate in the consensus algorithm, the Libra
> Blockchain is absolutely designed to be open.

They skip the first question: Libra is not a block chain. It uses Merkel tree
accumulators for updating the state of the database, so it's definately not a
block chain, it's just marketed as one.

~~~
simplesleeper
wikipedia says -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain)
\- that transaction data is generally represented by a merkle tree in block
chains

~~~
xiphias2
Yes, the block of transactions is arranged in a Merkel tree, but that Merkel
tree is finalized, chained to the previous block and secured by proof of work.

Libra is changing the Merkel tree over time, it is never final, which is
similar to pre-Bitcoin digital currencies.

------
jddj
I'm pretty skeptical about Libra overall.

In the case where it succeeds massively as in some of Matt Levine's recent
thought experiments, I'm not convinced that Facebook has captured enough of
the US regulatory framework for them to turn a blind eye to a new global
currency which eventually rivals or overtakes the dollar in usefulness. If we
accept, for example, that needing to buy and sell oil in dollars allows for a
much more effective sanctioning infrastructure then it seems unlikely they
will let a corporate-controlled currency whose ideals don't align explicitly
with those of the US get too powerful without a fight.

In the other case, where it just becomes a data-hoarding venmo, but initially
for the unbanked global poor, I'm not convinced that a) those people are truly
sitting around unable to transact while they wait for Facebook to provide the
solution and b) that a payment token which is pegged to a basket of global
currencies rather than their own is truly the solution that these people would
be seeking.

Now, the (theoretical) implementation makes it look more like it's aimed
towards the first scenario, some kind of global-corporatist dystopia which we
as a society walk into blindly because it's conveniently available within
WhatsApp.

And I don't doubt the value of convenience, nor that there are some very smart
people behind this who may have estimated that with the right implementation
and dark enough patterns, they can use their market share to break through the
latter scenario and into the first. But these are interesting times - I don't
expect governments to sit on their hands, and we're not exactly in the midst
of a surge in the popularity of globalism right now.

------
qwertox
Very telling that his article is hosted on facebook.com instead of libra.org.

It kind of proves that the separation between Facebook and Libra is nothing
but a lie.

He just doesn't get it and he never will.

~~~
sophiebits
It isn’t an Official Facebook Announcement though. Think of it more like a
Medium post.

~~~
iamzozo
You know, when the message is "this is not a facebook product", because some
people confused about it and you post an "unoffical" announcement on facebook,
then maybe it's not a good PR.

~~~
qwertox
Probably Libra's hosting provider doesn't offer a one-click blogging plug-in
that could get integrated in their website. What are they hosted on?
WordPress?

I'm pretty certain WordPress is all about blogging...

So if even Libra's team isn't capable of posting on their own website, but
instead have to "reach out" to Facebook, it isn't too far fetched to assume
that they're sitting in Facebook's premises to begin with.

------
ilaksh
> transition to a truly permissionless and decentralized consensus

The fact that this is something that is supposed to happen at some unspecified
point in the future but the "blockchain" they have cannot handle it -- I think
its just a lie. It looks like it would require a massively different codebase
and hardfork to get to permisionless and decentralized. They are not actually
planning on doing it.

Also, the fact that its backed by Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal -- they are the
absolute enemies of cryptocurrency.

Real cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum will be able to scale.
Ethereum in particular has very advanced plans for rolling out very high
scalability in a matter of months. That is what I support.

I do not think it makes sense to use a fake "cryptocurrency" just so that the
old companies can continue to get a cut of my transactions and the government
can more easily control my money if they want.

------
SuperNinjaCat
My immediate gut reaction to this entire thing (and again, this is only a
personal viewpoint not held by others) is along the lines of: What could go
wrong with giving one of the most shady corporations on the planet the
permission to print its own currency?

~~~
on_and_off
Same. The only interrogation I have is what can be done to stop Libra.

------
antihero
Well I can't use Libra, because an algorithm banned me for an obvious joke
post and has absolutely nothing in terms of a proper appeals process or
accountability. So if I had ever depended on Libra I'd be up shit creek, I
guess?

------
probe
"It’s easy to assume from the headlines that Libra is only associated with
Facebook, but that is not the case."

With the post on.... Facebook.com

~~~
sophiebits
You too can post anything you want on... Facebook.com

------
hndamien
Short of transaction speed and cost, there is so little that is appealing in
this compared to Bitcoin, and it has all of the centralisation and compliance
pitfalls that a neutral, free (liberty), decentralised money already avoids.

~~~
emef
Transaction cost and speed are enormous problems for bitcoin, not sure why
that would only be mildly appealing to solve. Not vouching for Libra, but my
understanding of bitcoin was that it caps out at something ridiculously low
like 11 transactions/second, which each cost multiple USD. Clearly that is the
bottleneck that needs to be addressed by whatever would lead crypto moving
forward (I remember reading visa processes more than 10k transactions/s).

~~~
wmf
Bitcoin is the oldest and thus technically least advanced cryptocurrency.
There are plenty of coins that are much better than Bitcoin in terms of
privacy and scalability; Libra should be compared against these.

~~~
r32a_
Wrong. Bitcoin will use Lightning Network for most everyday transactions and
it's speed is only limited by network liquidity and bandwidth

~~~
diab0lic
Genuinely curious: Does the lightning network provide all of the same
guarantees that the standard Bitcoin network provides? What are the downsides?
Why isn't the lightning network used all the time instead of the Bitcoin
protocol?

~~~
iso-8859-1
The downside is that there is no market for watchtowers yet (so you need be
online while having channels open).

Another disadvantage is that if you control your key, you must be online.
Like, if you run an HTTP server, you must have a machine. With plain Bitcoin
you can spend to a pubkey and it doesn't have to be online

~~~
spookthesunset
Having to be online to be secure is a pretty big hole, don’t you think? Sure
you could outsource it to some trusted party, but that feels awfully bank-like
and I thought bitcoin was all about being your own bank. Am I wrong?

~~~
goristerHAN
Watchtowers are not trusted parties and you do not have to be always online to
be secure. There is a configurable period where you can broadcast a revocation
transaction. Watchtowers can do it for you but it's designed so they cannot
frame you. The penalty for broadcasting an out of date transaction is loss of
all funds in the channel.

To summarize.

1\. Attacks are extremely unlikely in the first place.

2\. Watchtowers can prevent them if they do happen.

3\. Watchtowers are trustless. They in no way resemble banks.

4\. Without a watchtower you are not required to be always online to be
secure.

~~~
iso-8859-1
If I am not online and don't use a watch tower, how is the breach remedy
transaction published in time?

------
seibelj
One thing that’s been nice since the Libra announcement is the number of knee-
jerk reaction “cryptocurrency is 100% useless and look at this NIST blockchain
flow chart hurrr hurrrr” comments have mostly disappeared. It seems like
crypto is not totally useless after all, but the biggest threat to humanity
ever created... or something...

~~~
danShumway
Crypto isn't the reason why Libra is dangerous, Facebook is.

If Facebook was launching their own business-controlled currency that was
backed by an SQL database, you'd see the exact same reaction. The crypto part
is just an implementation detail, what people are actually upset about is
corporations trying to seize control of our currency.

~~~
antpls
Corporations are subjects to local laws, so what's the issue ? It seems people
are afraid of the unknown more than Facebook.

My personal questions : If anything goes wrong with the Libra scheme, who will
be responsible ? Who would be fined / sent to prison ?

------
chicob
In Portuguese, "libra" is the word for the British Pound Sterling (GBP).

I wonder how it is being branded here and whether there will be some kind of
confusion, or mandatory differentiation.

~~~
robteix
Currency names are not unique. How many countries use "dollar" or "peso"?
Portuguese-speakers don't seem to have a problem with that, so I'm sure they
will somehow find a way to deal with two "libras"

~~~
glitchdout
You usually prefix it with the country name. So that leaves us with
"australian dollar", "mexican peso" and, huh, I guess, "facebook libra"?

------
tigerlily
I like to think of cash as a kind of slack in the system. Yeah there's corrupt
stuff going on, but I like its immediacy and utility. A digital currency that
is under full surveillance would just cause the whole financial machinery to
seize up like a rusted Rube Goldberg.

------
shitgoose
the moment libra is exchanged for fiat, it is under scrutiny (know your client
etc). fbi routinely nails various e-gold enterprises, where clients exchange
fiat for tokens and freely transact tokens across the globe. all it takes is
to open a couple of libra accounts and send a transaction with "hurt as many
americans as possible" in the details. a lot of people were busted for a lot
less than that.

imagine high volume small denomination libra transactions between florida and
colombia - fb will spend the rest of their days trying to explain to fbi they
didn't mean no harm.

~~~
jillesvangurp
The FBI has no jurisdiction outside the US and you are right that cash is more
safe to use for buying cocaine, ordering hit men, buying child pornography,
etc. Libra is probably not going to be popular for that sort of thing. The
irony of a distributed ledger is that it actually makes enforcement a lot
easier. Facebook will simply point to the ledger and tell the FBI that
"everything you need to know is public information". FB is also uniquely
positioned to facilitate all the required KYC and AML processes.

The reason governments are worried about Libra is not his but the fact that
people might choose to no longer exchange for fiat. If you are transacting and
earning Libra, why would you swap for dollars/euros and pay the transaction
fees for that? This is a much bigger concern for governments than the black
market economy.

~~~
shitgoose
"The FBI has no jurisdiction outside the US"

tell this to Vinnik, a Russian national who was arrested in Greece on behalf
of FBI and extradited to US:)

if FB starts enforcing KYC, then the adoption will be very narrow - US and few
other developed countries. even in US i doubt that many people will be happy
to share their driver's licences and bank accounts with FB for obvious
reasons. and without wide adoption there will be no libra "closed system" as
you described. this is catch 22. i don't see how FB can pull this off. i don't
even see any clear strategy behind libra.

------
gexla
> At the core, we believe that a network that helps move more cash
> transactions — where a lot of illicit activities happen — to a digital
> network that features regulated on and off ramps with proper know-your-
> customer (KYC) practices, combined with the ability for law enforcement and
> regulators to conduct their own analysis of on-chain activity, will be a big
> opportunity to increase the efficacy of financial crimes monitoring and
> enforcement.

I wonder how many people in the world can pass a KYC check right this moment.

~~~
hartator
Know your customer is BS. It's just an excuse to invade your privacy and ask
you personal questions.

~~~
dymk
And all efforts to curb money laundering, and all AML compliance laws are just
to invade your personal privacy and nothing more too, right?

~~~
gonational
Yes.

The worst way to try to catch or curb money launderers is to create some kind
of monetary system in which they will take no part.

Gold will not cease to exist because of a corporate “cryptocurrency”? As long
as there are any fungible value stores in existence, there will be money
laundering.

------
nobrains
From the blog: "I wanted to remind everyone that Facebook, through its
subsidiary Calibra, is just one of the initial 28 Founding Members that are
coming together to form the Libra Association. It’s easy to assume from the
headlines that Libra is only associated with Facebook, but that is not the
case."

Then why is Facebook the only entity making blog posts about Libra? Except,
when you assume the reader is dumb.

------
stesch
Wondering how normal Germans would react to Libra. See
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ26TbhZW8k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ26TbhZW8k)
(How to deal with money like a German | Meet the Germans)

------
dnprock
Facebook is asking corporate interests of different sizes, big and small, to
join Libra effort. They will all have equal stake, including the founding
company, Facebook. It'll be the biggest, possibly only, corporate altruism
experiment in history. I think they have a small chance of succeeding if they
are willing to pump in billions of dollars without expecting any return.

~~~
MH15
_Corporate altruism experiment_ Libra is a tool to control the global poor,
not an "altruism experiment".

------
mymythisisthis
I've noticed that power tools (cordless electric drills) have started to
become the currency of the underground economy.

~~~
gonational
Poe’s Law may apply here, but are you being serious? Please explain.

~~~
gruez
Presumably because power tools are high value goods that are often stolen by
addicts to pay for their addictions. Then they make their way up the value
chain. It doesn't really make sense though - they're not really fungible,
they're pretty hard to transact with, and converting them to cash is tricky
(how are you going to find a steady stream of buyers?).

Tide detergent is also used as currency, and it's better than power tools as a
currency in all regards.

------
aliswe
So sorry, I just found this being very funny: "Economic empowerment is one of
our core values"

------
p0nce
What is the value of tracking every transaction? For us.

------
towlinson
They see easy money, they get easy money, poor people get f __ __.

------
r32a_
Let's call this for what it really is, they want to replace democracy with
Corporatism.

At least with a government backed currency we get a choice on who runs the
government. Even though that power is constantly being eroded.

The companies that run Libra however have 0 obligation to users of Libra but
only to maximise profits for their shareholders. This is their plan:

* Dedicate a lot of resources to spread the adoption of Libra

* Change the language of what Libra is.

* Extract as much value as they possibly can from Libra users.

The proof is simple, If FB and all of those companies dedicated resources to
development and adoption of Bitcoin itself then it would be able to reach the
goals of Libra and be more decentralised than Libra.

David Marcus and the entire Facebook Libra team make me sick to my stomach.

~~~
carlosdp
Bitcoin is not more decentralized than Libra today[1]. Libra has 28 members,
going to 100. The top 11 bitcoin mining pools control 99% of the hashrate.

[1] [https://www.blockchain.com/pools](https://www.blockchain.com/pools)

~~~
clarkmoody
Pools are groups of miners. If the pool operator starts behaving badly, the
constituent miners will point their hashpower elsewhere.

~~~
b_tterc_p
You forgot a “might” in there.

------
b_tterc_p
Libra feels like a great new avenue for physical, violent crime.

