
Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra - alcio
https://calibra.com/
======
pmlnr
> Imagine if cash became digital.

Been there, in China, with Alipay. Absolutely no way for an EU person to pay
with it: doesn't accept European phone number for sign up and since the end of
2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport.

Don't touch cash. That's the only fallback we have for outages, when someone
is without data connection (ghasp!) or for scenarios where politics or
decisions make it impossible for foreigners to use it, like above.

EDIT one additional thought. One of my technical issues with Alipay is that it
requires data connection from both sides. With POS terminals it's only the
seller who needs to have some kind of a phone line. In a foreign country, with
the current state of roaming charges, this is a serious problem. I don't know
if FB plans to address this issue.

EDIT2 responding to some comments - even if a foreigner could/can get a full
Chinese SIM, for spending 2 weeks there the need for a second, dedicated SIM
is an overkill and an additional, tricky round, especially if you're not going
to a Tier 1 city. Even if you succeed adding foreign bank accounts and debit
cards could get tricky if I understand correctly, but I never actually got to
test it.

~~~
sametmax
Also cash is the only thing that works if your system gets unfair in some way.
It's the only thing that allows a hobo to stay in touch with society, paying
in a gay bar without trace, setup a political group that the state would deem
immoral, experiment with banned drugs, buy censored books and journals, etc

If you like democracy, you need a small, but resiliant grey zone. You need to
allow a few people to take the risk of doing what's condamned. It's not sexy,
but it's necessary.

Do not outlaw cash.

~~~
ur-whale
>Do not outlaw cash

As much as I agree with you, cash is unfortunately already well on its way
out: in many EU countries (Italy, France), cash transactions above 1.5k euros
are illegal. For example, buying a car cash is illegal. The US won't be far
behind, imho.

For small transactions (eg buying a loaf of bread), something flipped in small
business owners minds: they used to hate plastic for small stuff, and I can
increasingly feel that today, it's the exact opposite: people let out a small
sigh of annoyance when they see you pull out your coins.

This is a freedom almost as important as free speech that's slowly and
silently being choked to death by big govt and not a single so-called freedom
fighter out there, be they on the left or on the right of the political
spectrum is picking up on the significance of the issue.

~~~
robin_reala
I’m not disagreeing, but have you got a reference for your first paragraph?

~~~
Flashtoo
[https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/consumer-
topics/finan...](https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/consumer-
topics/financial-services-insurance/banking/means-of-payment/cash-payment-
limitations/)

------
dgellow
From the FAQ:

> Question: How will you prevent fraud?

> Anwer: All accounts and transactions are verified, and fraud prevention is
> built in throughout the app. Accounts are verified with government-issued
> ID, so you know people are who they say they are. Facebook and WhatsApp
> account information are also used when available to verify identity and
> prevent fraud. Calibra also has in-app reporting and dedicated customer
> service. In the rare event of unauthorized fraud, you will receive a full
> refund.

How can they refund the money? Would that mean that they have full control on
the currency? And if they do, doesn't that defeat the purpose of a blockchain?

~~~
wickoff
You don't need to ask Facebook permission to transfer the money, but they
reserve the right to intervene if you commit fraud. That's why they are using
a blockchain.

The governments will love it because it allows for perfect surveillance, the
people will love it because it makes international payments seamless, it can
erase the predatory remittance business out of existence. If they can convince
merchants to accept it, they can also improve on credit card UX.

~~~
emerongi
How is that different from transferring money through a bank?

I can understand the benefit of this from the standpoint that it will be
essentially a global currency, which will reduce transfer times and just
generally make it easier to send money, however I don't understand why a
blockchain is involved. We already have similar solutions (Paypal,
Transferwise etc), is blockchain just a way to market this thing?

~~~
literallycancer
A transatlantic bank transfer will cost you over 30 euros in correspondent
bank fees, in addition to the fees your bank and their bank charge. And you'll
get no receipt for that, because banks suck.

~~~
oarsinsync
> A transatlantic bank transfer will cost you over 30 euros

Not will, but can. I did a transatlantic SWIFT payment recently and it cost me
$9 in correspondent bank fees. I did another one and it cost me $0 in fees. I
did another and it cost $18.

In each instance, I was able to get a SWIFT trace by asking the emitting and
receiving banks to provide this. I didn't get a receipt for the SWIFT fees
correspondent banks charged, but I did get receipts for the bank fees at
either end.

Banks do suck, and the payment networks also suck, but sometimes they can suck
less.

------
ilaksh
This is Facebook's attempt to cash in on the cryptocurrency hype with a high
tech type of bank before real cryptocurrencies can scale and become
mainstream.

I consider it a moral imperative for developers to stop this. In fact I will
probably make some comment like that at some point on their GitHub pages.
Which I expect to be removed. But this is the good fight. It's what Star Wars
is really about. Defeating the evil empire.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I agree with your first point. Calibra without the "cryptocurrency blockchain"
keywords would still have the same utility.

As to your second point, may I ask why you consider it a moral imperative for
developers to stop this?

------
krn
> Accounts are verified with government-issued ID, so you know people are who
> they say they are. Facebook and WhatsApp account information are also used
> when available to verify identity and prevent fraud.

What could be a bigger achievement for an ad company than being able to track
all transactions between its users and customers? That's why your payment
account will be associated with your social account. What Facebook is doing
here, it's providing a lower-margin (payment processing) service for free to
grow its higher-margin (ad targeting) business.

~~~
hnarn
> Aside from limited cases, Calibra will not share account information or
> financial data with Facebook, Inc. or any third party without customer
> consent. For example, Calibra customers’ account information and financial
> data will not be used to improve ad targeting on the Facebook, Inc. family
> of products

[https://scontent-
ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_3...](https://scontent-
ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_355528488499253_8415273665234468864_n.pdf?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent-
ams4-1.xx&oh=4339de8f67aa1979272cfe937400d865&oe=5D982AC3)

~~~
krn
> without customer consent

Which every customer will give by agreeing with carefully crafted "Terms and
Conditions".

------
dfischer
[https://github.com/libra/libra](https://github.com/libra/libra) and

[https://libra.org/en-US/](https://libra.org/en-US/)

Built in Rust. Interesting. Nice choice.

~~~
dalf
Some other links :

\- White paper : [https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-
bl...](https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-
blockchain.pdf)

\- What's Next? : [https://developers.libra.org/blog/2019/06/18/the-path-
forwar...](https://developers.libra.org/blog/2019/06/18/the-path-forward)

\- Moving Toward Permissionless Consensus : [https://libra.org/en-
US/permissionless-blockchain](https://libra.org/en-US/permissionless-
blockchain)

------
lifty
This is their custommer commitment document which specifies some details about
how they will maintain user privacy and Libra's relationship to Facebook:
[https://scontent-
ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_3...](https://scontent-
ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_355528488499253_8415273665234468864_n.pdf?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent-
ams4-1.xx&oh=4339de8f67aa1979272cfe937400d865&oe=5D982AC3)

------
huis
"We are working to bring Calibra to as many countries as possible, as soon as
we can."

I hope my country won't allow a currency controlled by a foreign company.

The power of companies is already influencing democracy in a bad way.

------
anentropic
I can't believe any good will come of this

------
beefield
Can someone give something like eli5 how this works? Is the currency pegged to
some currency? How is that peg supposed to hold? Is facebook a bank? Where are
the assets supporting the currency ( if they exist) invested?

~~~
tdjsnelling
From the whitepaper:

> it will be backed by a collection of low-volatility assets, such as bank
> deposits and short-term government securities in currencies from stable and
> reputable central banks.

and

> The assets in the Libra Reserve will be held by a geographically distributed
> network of custodians with investment-grade credit rating to provide both
> security and decentralization of the assets.

[https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency-
and-...](https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency-and-reserve)

------
themanual
Big news. Nice to see more details.

\- They have GAS fees. (unlike say EOS which is free). \- Not sure how they
will make accounts anonymous? Knowing an account lets anyone query the account
balance? \- They will start with permissioned chain and transition to non
permissioned

------
I_am_tiberius
I think a cryptocurrency doesn't make sense if it's managed by a company.

------
sgeisler
Let's see if they will allow non-custodial wallets for libra, that might make
them the catalyst that enables real world bitcoin payments. There could be a
service that pays libra invoices for you if you send them bitcoins. If this
happens automated/transparently in wallets that would be a big step forward.
Let the POS terminal tell you which currency it wants and your wallet will
send it. If they want USD send libra, if they want BTC send BTC via lightning.
Switching from accepting USD to BTC would become seamless (e.g. in case of
increasing inflation).

~~~
thefounder
Something tells me the calibra wallet will be the only wallet authz and it
will be no different than your paypal app both as functionality and
flexibility. As far as bitcoin is concerned it has no place in the payments
world. It's a flawed coin for payments due its volatility.

------
dessant
> Accounts are verified with government-issued ID, so you know people are who
> they say they are.

I would prefer a global payment solution that defaults to anonymity, or at
least pseudonymity, especially when it comes to transferring small amounts of
money, such as paying for groceries.

This requirement is nothing more on Facebook's part than defaulting to the
lowest common denominator in order to harvest as much data as they possibly
can.

~~~
consp
That would be illegal almost everywhere in the world for natural persons.

~~~
dessant
One can legally pay with cryptocurrencies for various services around the
world, without submitting a government ID.

[https://www.lifewire.com/big-sites-that-accept-bitcoin-
payme...](https://www.lifewire.com/big-sites-that-accept-bitcoin-
payments-3485965)

[https://coinmap.org/#/world/31.80289259/-82.96875000/3](https://coinmap.org/#/world/31.80289259/-82.96875000/3)

~~~
thefounder
Bitcoin is a nightmare for both buyer and seller due its volatility, not to
mention the difference between exchange rates. You may buy your bitcoin with a
specific price but the merchant/payment processor values it
differently(lower). Just check bitpay to see for yourself

~~~
dessant
All payment solutions have drawbacks, we are talking about legality at the
moment.

------
xyst
I’m skeptical, but it’s too early in the morning to deep dive into the white
papers. Will save it for later.

Based on what I have read though, this digital currency isn’t really a crypto
coin. The users are verified through government issued identification and it
appears the coin is issued by a centralized system.

Seems like the companies invested into this system are trying to act like the
Federal Reserve in the United States.

------
chvid
I am curius how refund works? Is there a "master key" that allows Facebook
customer service to reverse a transaction or create a transaction from an
arbitrary account?

And how does this play with current financial legislation. Do they have a
banking license?

And where is the blockchain stored?

Otherwise great news; I am looking forward to something that probably has a
very good end-user experience compared to what else is out there.

------
laurent123456
What's the use case for it? It looks like the point is to send money from
people to people easily. But how about businesses? Currently I can pay with
Contactless in shops, and on online services, paying by debit/credit card is
straightforward. So I'm not seeing exactly what it will be used for.

~~~
microwavecamera
More data mining?

~~~
laurent123456
Yes I don't expect Facebook to do anything for the greater good, however they
still need to convince people to use it, and I'm curious what's the plan.
"More data mining" won't cut it on their press release :)

Well I guess at this point they can pretty much force people to use the
currency (by not giving any other payment options) since people are locked
into their platform and won't leave no matter what Facebook do.

------
sametmax
So the GAFAM wants to get independant from the banks. Great.

But they don't want to be controled by anything, or share the power, or make
it fair, or good for humanity.

So they call it a cryptocoin, yet it's locked in and centralized.

I'm all for taking power from the bank, giving more power to the Silicon
Valley is a terrible idea.

------
hulahoof
Currently 404 for me, was the site up ?

~~~
HackerBacker
It was for around 17 mins and then everything is returning is 404. The
website, link to WP.

Edit: Well, it's up now!

------
GutenYe
Can not open in Firefox :( but works fine with Chrome.

> ReferenceError: requireLazy is not defined

~~~
yuliyp
Are you blocking some Facebook CDN domains perhaps?

~~~
GutenYe
Found the problem, Facebook Container extension blocked the js file.

------
tomglynch
> "In the rare event of unauthorized fraud, you will receive a full refund."

How?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Presumably by giving your money back to you.

That's generally how a refund works.

Did you have something else in mind?

~~~
rahulkapil
That would mean they are an intermediary in the blockchain.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
They create a new transaction from their probably inexhaustible wallet to your
wallet.

I don't know much about Calibra, is it a public blockchain? Can anyone build a
client to generate transactions and mine blocks?

------
josh2600
Congratulations to Facebook for releasing code. I’m excited to see how the
industry evolves.

We look forward to showing the world what we’ve been working on at MobileCoin
when it’s ready.

Privacy matters.

------
woofwoofwoof
I remember they announced reliable messaging across Facebook-owned apps (fb
messenger, whatsapp, instagram), but looks like Instagram is not supported
yet.

------
LeoNatan25
Don't use Facebook's cryptocurrency.

------
1in21m
Open access? NO

Decentralized? NO

Censorship resistant? NO

Fixed monetary policy? NO

Unseizable? NO

Transaction fee market? NO

There's no point in FB using a blockchain for their digital payments network,
other than touting it as a 'cryptocurrency'. A centralized or federated
database is all they need.

