
Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers - Osiris30
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-new-cryptocurrency-gets-big-backers-11560463312?mod=rsswn
======
superkuh
Is it really a cryptocurrency when it's completely centralized? No. This is
just Facebook-bucks. Store dollars. It's has absolutely none of the benefits
of a real cryptocurrency.

~~~
pjc50
> Facebook-bucks

Missed opportunity to call them "Marks", although maybe only German speakers
will get the joke.

~~~
stillworks
With all due respect to nations' currency names... can I but recommend "Douche
Mark" in this instance ?

------
Ahmed90
Everyone here is debating is it crypot or not... but does it matter? it's
Facebook after all, we are (the typical techy user) not the target audience.

Unfortunately, it's going to sell just because it's the big old facebook, your
non-techy friend probably don't know the difference between crypto and food
stamps all they know it's points for money, one is a boring piece of paper and
the other is cool futuristic out of the matrix Bitcoin like super numbers

~~~
julianlam
Didn't Facebook try something like this years and years ago in the form of
Facebook credits, going so far as to even disallowing apps from having their
own currency?

I wonder how this is different, besides the whole "blockchain" bit, because
otherwise it's just a rehashed idea with makeup on it.

~~~
Ahmed90
That was around 2010 iirc, before it was cool.

------
mountainofdeath
So a cryptocurrency that is more currency than crypto? Again, back to the
argument that the market is the same as in-game currency, store gift cards,
Chuck-E-Cheese tokens, etc.

Let's be honest, most of the hype around cryptocurrency is for speculation and
not as a legitimate means of exchange. Normal money works fine for means-of-
exchange barring a few exceptions e.g. capital flight, money laundering,
generally escaping regulation so the only value left is hype.

~~~
derefr
People are using the wrong term here. Stablecoins (what Facebook has made
here) aren’t cryptocurrencies in-and-of themselves; they’re systems that
_expose_ regular fiat currency to smart contracts, so that you can pass e.g.
“5USD” from one contract to another without it losing value; or so that
exchanges don’t all have to have their own relationships with physical
payment-processors and banks, instead just allowing you to “buy in” and “cash
out” in stablecoin assets, which you can then take to some other service to
trade for physical dollars.

As such, stablecoins have entirely different requirements and properties than
regular cryptocurrencies; for one, you usually _want_ one big well-known
entity backing them, because for the stablecoin to be stable, _someone_ needs
to back the coin with liquidity.

“Liquidity” is something Facebook obviously has more of than most others, so
they’re an obvious party to build a stablecoin.

(Really, though, the best stablecoin for USD, would actually be run by the US
government. There’s no reason for them not to do so, and no reason for people
to reject them doing so. One could even interpret running a wrapped-USD
stablecoin on any popular-in-the-US blockchain as being an _obligation_ of the
US Mint, given their mission. They’re currently failing to “print money” for
these US markets!)

~~~
opportune
Or more cynically, stablecoins are fiat wrappers that people hope will trick
regulators into not applying financial regulations to them.

------
randomsearch
My speculative take:

Facebook’s main product has likely peaked, in terms of users and advertising
unit economics. The brand is tarnished, it’s not cool for younger people, its
value proposition has been heavily eroded by short sighted decisions.

Instagram is doing really well, but by its nature is no substitute for
Facebook. It’s too specialised, too narrow a demographic, and doesn’t have the
same appeal all round. It can’t pick up the slack from a declining Facebook.

There are real regulatory dangers that Instagram etc will be separated off
anyhows.

This is a bet on something that could be big. I’d bet against it working out,
but a series of bets like this are probably the best strategy to hedge against
decline. We know payments dovetails well with messaging apps (hence perhaps
the attempt to unify them, conveniently making it more difficult to break up
the company). Payments is a no brainer, the “crypto” spin original but
probably irrelevant. For Facebook it does have the advantage of enabling them
to accumulate a large fund of “deposits” they can invest.

If the above is right, we should see a few other big bets being placed soon.

~~~
romanovcode
I think even Instagram is slowly but steadily decaying. The amount of
"influencers" are getting annoying even to younger people. I believe soon only
people who will remain are influencers influencing influencers, you can even
see this in the comments of said posts.

------
camjohnson26
If Facebook can pull this off they will have brought about the first universal
internet currency, which would be a stunning achievement and could
revolutionalize the web as we know it. Failed projects give us some idea of
what their challenges will be.

Cryptocurrencies right now have a trade off between scalability and
decentralization. Bitcoin is theoretically decentralized even though the
reality is more complex. But theoretically anyone with a computer can randomly
decide to mine the coin and participate in the network. This whole process is
made possible by Proof of Work, which was the key brilliant idea that made
bitcoin secure and possible. The problem right now is this algorithm doesn’t
allow very many transactions per second.

Other currencies have experimented with something called Proof of Stake to
solve the scaling problems but it’s not known if it can be as secure as proof
of work. Facebook’s currency will probably use this method. The basic idea is
that the holders of the currency vote for what happens on the network. It’s an
interesting idea but it’s a very different direction than the key idea of
bitcoin.

Another issue is that governments rely on setting interest rates to manage
their economies. If an internet currency starts to take off that will limit
their ability to do this. At that point you can expect major pushback.

And also, the cryptocurrency ecosystem is a huge target for hackers. Millions
of dollars have been stolen over the last decade. Brilliant attacks have been
created to exploit the tiniest flaws in code. The phone numbers of crypto
enthusiasts have been hacked and their wallets drained. Hackers have even
embedded malware on websites or servers to mine cryptocurrency on computers
they don’t control. Facebook will need an iron clad security process if it
wants to succeed.

~~~
ForHackernews
> Facebook’s currency will probably use this method...the holders of the
> currency vote for what happens on the network

What are you basing this assumption on?

From everything Facebook has ever done to date, I expect Zuckcoin will use the
method of "what FB says goes, and if you don't like it, you can pound sand."

~~~
celticninja
Which really boils down to 'what Zuckerberg says goes" so you want to put the
control of a currency, perhaps used by 1bn real users, in the hands of a
single greedy individual who has already shown contempt for users and their
data.

------
beatle_sauce
> It isn’t known, even to some members of the consortium, how the coin will
> work or what their roles will be, people familiar with the project said.

Such a stablecoin still requires a regulatory approval process before roll-
out.

Just as a reminder that there are open alternatives, GNU Taler would offer a
more privacy-oriented stablecoin with an already clear specification, but has
not yet been adopted by banks that require the regulatory approval. On the
mailing list, the developer wrote that they work on the two missing features
needed for approval (cross-device synchronization and an integrated backup
solution).

------
raquo
Why does this centralized stablecoin need to be crypto? It's not like they
need to raise funding for this.

They could have made their own boring but extremely well positioned WePay /
Paypal alternative ages ago, and instead they waited until cryptocurrencies
are past peak hype to launch this. Puzzling.

I guess the only thing they have to sell here is the privacy aspect of crypto,
but I doubt you'll get effective privacy from Facebook on any Facebook
platform, crypto or not.

~~~
nroets
It's a token i.e. a financial derivative. So Facebook is not giving it's users
bank accounts. So there is less regulation e.g. Know Your Customer.

A block chain will make it easier to build trust because (some) third parties
can audit it.

~~~
pxndxx
How is this different from the "digital coins" e.g. gems in pay to win games
then? They don't give me a bank account, but it's still digital money, but not
a cryptocurrency.

~~~
nroets
Many businesses exclusively accept WeChat and Alipay. So there is a mechanism
for paying rent, utilities and tax. Otherwise they would run out of cash.

To replicate that level of success, Facebook must create a mechanism to
convert tokens back to cash.

So the tokens are basically just used to get past regulations. Facebook will
then gather some hard numbers to show that crime is negligible. Sensible
governments will tolerate the tokens because it's replacing physical cash
where crimes like tax evasion are rampant.

------
clarkmoody

      Facebook Inc. has signed up more than a dozen companies
      including Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc.
      and Uber Technologies Inc. to back a new cryptocurrency it
      plans to unveil next week and launch next year.
    

This means each of these companies will pay $$$ to run a "node" for this
currency and have full visibility into the transactional behavior of the users
of the coin.

The term "cryptocurrency" is applied a bit too liberally in the space, but
what are the odds that Facebook's coin is censorship-resistant? Will Facebook
help enforce US monetary imperialism, or will it thumb its nose at US
sanctions? (e.g. allow a US Facebook user to send Libra to Iranian Facebook
users)

Now, there could be a surprise plot twist in which these megacorps stand up
for individual liberties. There have been stranger things.

~~~
pfundstein
I'm interested to see the how existing crypto exchanges will handle this
currency, if it can be traded on them at all. The market that develops in the
cryptosphere around Libra will certainly liberate any attempted sanctions on
the coin itself, unless Facebook can prevent free trading of the currency on
exchanges.

------
runeks
> It has been a decade since bitcoin was born, yet consumers hardly use it—or
> the hundreds of other cryptocurrencies—to pay for things.

And why would they? Adding two extra steps to paying someone -- the buyer
converting local currency to bitcoin, and then the seller converting bitcoin
to local currency -- can never compete with just transferring local currency
directly. Cryptocurrency was meant to be much more than just a payment system.

Cryptocurrencies will not succeed until they close the loop: people receive
their wages in cryptocurrency, which they use to pay for consumer goods in
retail stores that accept only cryptocurrency (because their suppliers would
pay their employees in cryptocurrency).

 _This_ is where cryptocurrency would shine, ie. by creating a global credit
market, since the unit of account could be the same for e.g. Turkey, Nicaragua
and Vietnam. A global cryptocurrency-credit market could arise, in which
savers finance e.g. consumer goods on the shelves of retail shops. This would
incentivize savers to purchase cryptocurrency in order to earn a low-risk
return on their money -- something which is not possible to do in most Western
economies with short-term interest rates at zero or below.

 _PS: If anyone is interested in creating the software infrastructure to make
this happen, please let me know._

~~~
skohan
As someone with a split existence between North America and the Euro Zone, I
was sincerely hoping that cryptocurrency would at a minimum be a reliable
medium of exchange: i.e. a way to convert dollars into euros and vice-versa in
a matter of minutes with very low fees. I never needed it to be an investment
vehicle.

Unfortunately, bitcoin's utility in that respect seems to have gotten worse
since I was playing around with it 5 years ago. I haven't been following
recently so maybe it's changed, but during the bubble there was a move towards
high fees and less liquidity, with plenty of horror stories of exchanges
locking people out of their wallets during big price moves.

IMO bitcoin would be much more useful if it had remained a niche tool for
people to buy drugs on the internet rather than the pure speculative
instrument it seems to have turned into.

~~~
runeks
> As someone with a split existence between North America and the Euro Zone, I
> was sincerely hoping that cryptocurrency would at a minimum be a reliable
> medium of exchange: i.e. a way to convert dollars into euros and vice-versa
> in a matter of minutes with very low fees.

You're not looking for a new currency, you're looking for a regular currency
exchange. Whatever fees your currency exchange charges for going from EUR to
USD (and back) can only increase if you need to involve another exchange (for
the bitcoin-conversion).

~~~
skohan
So the promise of Bitcoin when I started reading up about it was that the fees
could be close to zero. It's become less of an issue, because there are some
traditional currency exchange services out there which have reasonable flat-
rate offerings nowadays, but I would still be happy to pay less.

~~~
runeks
> So the promise of Bitcoin when I started reading up about it was that the
> fees could be close to zero.

I don't see why this would be the case. Neither when talking blockchain-fees
nor exchange-fees.

------
xwdv
IMO this is it, the last best chance for a cryptocurrency to take off and
actually be used as a currency and not a speculative vehicle. If Libra fails,
even with all of Facebook’s resources at its disposal, then there is unlikely
to be any viable cryptocurrency for at least another generation.

Disclaimer: I hold a lot of stock in FB and no positions in other crypto.

~~~
snitko
Speculative vehicle? We're paying devs salaries in Bitcoin, what are you
talking about?

~~~
Barrin92
and many people are compensated in highly volatile stocks that are subject to
speculation, you paying someone in bitcoin doesn't change anything about its
speculative nature, it just means your employees are willing to receive
compensation in a volatile currency.

~~~
andkenneth
And they probably liquidate a good portion of it as soon as it hits their
wallets.

------
Mengkudulangsat
I'll be honest, I'm excited.

The biggest hurdle to Bitcoin adoption are on-ramps / off-ramps. Businesses
and individuals dealing with Bitcoin frequently get de-risked by banks and
suppressed by regulators (e.g: China & India).

Libra if (a) can be interacted with via API, (b) can itself be acquired via
bank transfers / credit cards & (c) not geo-fenced, will eventually be adapted
into one of the many exchanges and will contribute greatly to solving
Bitcoin's on-ramping issues.

Whether consumers want Bitcoin once they've tasted Libra, well that's an
ideological choice. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

~~~
snitko
Why would anyone want a facebook coin that is completely controlled by
Facebook which can be controlled by the government when with Bitcoin you get
complete sovereignty?

~~~
ramraj07
Because not everyone cares about "complete sovereignty"? There's a reason why
all these companies are still successful, most people don't care that much
about their privacy or other dignities if it means convenience.

~~~
snitko
Then I see no difference from USD. What exactly is the point? Yet another
payment method?

~~~
Mengkudulangsat
Facebook is trying to create a common currency accessible to a global userbase
whose transmission bypasses traditional banking rails. It'll be super
convenient, even the USD can't do that.

This combined with Whatsapp for Business is going to be game changing for SMEs
in developing markets.

Do I want to keep my savings in it? Probably not...

~~~
askmike
You mean like Paypal?

It might be a great project, it just has very little to do with actual
cryptocurrencies. It's great to be excited about it, the issue many people in
this thread have the project being called a cryptocurrency.

------
wyxuan
Visa MasterCard and PayPal are just there to ensure that they don't get left
behind if the FB coin succeeds, payments are their bread and butter, so if
they can hop on the train they can be partially insulated. Otherwise they
don't care.

------
nelsonic
This sounds like a great way for FB to know even more about you.

~~~
jmalkin
Facebook's equivalent of Google pay on the sense of data gathering?

~~~
LilBytes
Yes.

------
thedudeabides5
Can anyone explain how this will be different (from a user perspective) than
any other tech enabled payments platform (Alipay, Paypal, Venmo etc)?

What's the rationale?

~~~
datenhorst
The white paper will be published next week, then we'll know more.

------
nsx147
The real question here is if there will be a way to exchange this coin with
Bitcoin or other crypto

------
jbb123
I can imagine few things I'd be less likely to do than use a currency backed
by facebook.

------
gear54rus
I mean... Are they kidding me with that name?

~~~
nyolfen
what do you think is weird or bad about it? it's a pretty appropriate name for
a currency

~~~
mirimir
Sure, but not one owned by Facebook.

It's a sick joke.

~~~
dang
Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

~~~
mirimir
Sorry. If I had explained, I don't think that it would have been
unsubstantive. But I didn't. So anyway, to the point.

As the sign of balance, symbolized by scales, Libra is certainly relevant to
money. But the name is also a riff on liberty/liberation aka freedom. And
that's the sick joke, because Libre will be totally under Facebook control.

------
lostmymind66
The only reason Facebook is doing this is so they can track your purchases and
mine even more of your data.

This reminds me of what WeChat is doing in China, where most purchases are
made and tracked by the government from this app. I don't even know if you can
use cash there anymore.

With the amount of information Zuckerberg has on the US population, he
shouldn't ever be allowed to run for president while still running Facebook.

------
sidcool
Facebook has done horrible things, but bad business is not one of them. They
already have 2 billion+ people on their platform(s) and if Facebook enables a
virtual currency to exchange goods (real or virtual) it may be a hit. Just
like mobile wallets have taken off pretty well, this could too. Again, I am
not a facebook fan, but they know how to make money. This could be the next
billion dollar idea.

------
mirekrusin
If it’s going to be anything close to what people call cryptocurrency - it’ll
be deployed outside of fb 3 days later by somebody.

------
issa
I feel like this move will almost guarantee anti-trust actions. Although if
nothing has already, who knows.

~~~
whatpreventsit
What makes you think that?

~~~
turtlecloud
Printing money has always been under the domain of the government. Wars have
been fought over rights to print money.

------
SomeOldThrow
Can't read the article. What is it backed by? Where's this information coming
from? I can't find any press release or sources that aren't publishers
themselves—this smells like insubstantial technology and bought hype (not that
it won't work...).

~~~
ForHackernews
I assume it's backed by faith in Mr. Zuckerberg's sterling reputation as a
steward of the public trust.

------
SalimoS
As it's said in another comment, it's not cryptocurrency when it's centralized
and by a singe entity

i'm seeing it like all the in-game currency, controlled by the entity convert
your local currency to this platform bucks to use it ONLY inside that platform

------
tistoon
<< A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment. >>

Every time I see this kind of news, I wonder, how do journalists get so much
information when "an official spokesman declined to comment". Is this mainly
just buzz so FB is in the headlines?

------
SI_Rob
About the name - Libra

IIRC the Winklevoss twins have a Bitcoin exchange called Gemini

Surely a coincidence

brb going all in on tokenized cults

~~~
DoreenMichele
_IIRC the Winklevoss twins have a Bitcoin exchange called Gemini_

Gemini = "sign of the twins" (And, according to Wikipedia, is Latin for
"twins"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(constellation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_\(constellation\)))

It's probably just narcissism in that case.

I'm guessing "Libra" in this case is probably a variation of _Libre_ \-- free
-- rather than an astrological reference. But that's totally a _guess_ and
could be completely wrong.

If anyone actually knows why they named it _Libra_ , I would love to hear the
explanation. A quick search isn't turning up answers.

~~~
SI_Rob
The joke (maybe, maybe not) in drawing the presumably intentional astrological
connection has to do with the fact that the Winks and Zuckerberg have some ...
shared history.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Well, I have no idea what you are talking about. Care to elaborate?

I just find how things get named interesting. I did realize it was a joke, but
that doesn't preclude actually discussing why these things got the names they
have.

~~~
SI_Rob
Too long and getting OT to explain here, but in The Social Network it was
explored pretty... <dons shades > dramatically

------
treelovinhippie
I've met a hell of a lot of authoritarians in the crypto scene over the past
decade. Blockchain technology is a centralized datastore so of course it's a
tool for global authoritarianism; think IBM in the 1930s selling slow
databases to the Nazi's so they can keep a universal ledger of the Jews.

P2P distributed architectures such as Holochain which actually decentralize
data and control are far more positive paradigms for humanity.

~~~
polotics
You wrote: "Blockchain technology is a centralized datastore". care to
explain?

~~~
icebraining
I think they're talking about the blockchain working by a single global
(hence, "central") consensus. It seems Holo avoids that somehow.

~~~
askmike
That's not what anyone in the space calls centralized. It's actually called
"decentralized" by everyone because the way this consensus is kept and changed
happens decentralized (to some degree).

Right now it seems: If you don't have central consensus you can't have digital
currency. Since everybody needs to be on the same line regards to who owns
what. This is different from cash in the current world. Where nobody needs to
agree to how much I have because I can physically store it and it's impossible
to copy my dollars.

~~~
orbifold
They are calling it decentralised but it really isn't. Transactions with
physical cash are fully decentralised, anonymous (save for finger prints etc.)
and asynchronous. In terms of convenience credit cards, apple pay and PayPal
are hard to beat. I do not know of a single use case for consumer facing
crypto currencies that is compelling to me.

~~~
askmike
> I do not know of a single use case for consumer facing crypto currencies
> that is compelling to me.

Try buying something you are not allowed to buy. Personally I use it a lot
while traveling abroad.

------
bashwizard
Thanks, I hate it.

------
_pmf_
Dear god. I find China's approach of the social credit system less
threatening.

------
xtracto
I remember a Blockchain related story here in HN some days ago where someone
said that he did not believed in blockchain because there were no big-name
Engineers working on it, specifically nobody from FAANG.

There you go...

------
plotteddancer16
Any suspicions on how this will differ from the last decade of crypto coins?

~~~
nelsonic
Deeper integration into the most popular social network meaning more people
have exposure to it. In terms of functionality, it won't be any different.

~~~
A2017U1
It will far more likely be a database under the hood than a cryptocurrency.

~~~
beenBoutIT
If you keep the default settings and use it to buy anything it will spam your
'friends' just like Farmville. "Joe Wilson just used Libra to remove the
ransomware from his Dell, how will you use it?".

------
Pulletwee12549
Yeaaaah, Facebook doesn’t give a shit about privacy and love to sell our data
for $$. What makes them think we will trust them with our banking info? Lmao.

------
rattlesnakedave
Finally! A cryptocurrency with the ethics of Uber, the censorship resistance
of Paypal, and the centralization of Visa, all tied together under the proven
privacy of Facebook. Just what I’ve been waiting for.

~~~
DonHopkins
And the magnanimousity of Oracle. And the carbon footprint of cow farts.

[https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/02/16/exp-
gps-0217-ga...](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/02/16/exp-
gps-0217-gates-on-cow-farts.cnn)

~~~
runeks
> [https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/02/16/exp-
> gps-0217-ga...](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/02/16/exp-
> gps-0217-gates-on-cow-farts.cnn)

> Bill Gates explains how no one knows how to stop bovine flatulence, a major
> contributor to climate change.

I doubt we need to prevent cows from farting. As I understand it, all we need
to do is stop killing naturally occurring methanotrophic[1] fungi[2] with
pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanotroph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanotroph)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza)

~~~
matty22
Or have fewer cows in the first place by eating less meat.

~~~
DonHopkins
And we could reduce foul gas emissions by eating cryptocurrency shills.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/roYY9](http://archive.is/roYY9)

------
ddtaylor
Will this be a centralized currency?

~~~
godzillabrennus
It’s Mark “I’m CEO B!t(h” Zuckerberg.

Do you think he’d start a currency he wouldn’t be able to use to spy on every
user?

~~~
ddtaylor
I'm not really interested in the spying aspect of it, since most
cryptocurrencies make all transaction information public in their blockchains.

My interest is in who controls issuance of the currency itself and if that
control is decentralized or controlled by a central entity, like Facebook.

------
thefounder
This is good for the ecosystem. Next phase would be a crypto backed by
government(s).

~~~
glitchc
If govts actually introduced crypto, it would be completely isolated from
existing ecosystems. Unlike other players, govts. (western specifically) have
a mandate to protect user privacy on their systems.

~~~
thefounder
I believe some crypto currencies provide privacy(i.e monero) so a gov fork
could work.

Currently most of the governments share the data with various
corporations(usually US based such as Visa and Mastercard, SWIFT, plus various
national or foreign banks) and US gov agencies so the level of privacy is not
that great.

Crypto currencies could also provide transparency and open protocols so I
believe a gov backed crypto would be successful in many areas(i.e public
procurement)

------
sgt101
Is this a brutal, final, swing at the Winklevoss twins?

~~~
SI_Rob
Heh. You know their Bitcoin exchange is called ... wait for it... Gemini,
right?

They've wallpapered the DC Metro system with ads for it... calling it the
first safe regulated Bitcoin exchange.

------
john_moscow
Has everyone already forgotten KODAKCoin [0]?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin)

------
reizorc
What's in it for Facebook?

------
aphextim
Is there an official name for these tokens yet?

Facebucks?

Zuckbucks?

Cuckbucks?

Facecoins?

------
snitko
Ugh. This will pass too. The value of Bitcoin is in the fact that nobody can
control and censor it. It's black market money. If it didn't have this
quality, it'd be useless. Nobody (meaning customers) cares about Facebook
launching a coin. Facebook will not be the champion of freedom. How do I know?
Ask yourself, if Facebook Coin is going to be available in Crimea (currently
under sanctions) or Iran (currently under sanctions) or China (where facebook
is banned). The answer is of course not. Bitcoin is available in all of those
places and not a single government was able to do anything about it yet.

~~~
SomeOldThrow
You're forgetting how much credit card transaction suck. As I see it this is
the main problem facebook could solve through sheer volume of use:
microtransactions.

Granted this is about the worst way this future could come about....

~~~
asaph
If Libra is a threat to credit cards, then why are Visa and MasterCard
investing at least $10M each in it?

~~~
civicsquid
Isn't this a lot like asking why Tyson invested in Beyond Meat when BYND is a
threat to Tyson? Maybe you could call this defensively "investing in the
future" of your industry (if this turns out to be anything at all).

------
jormungand
and in the meantime real crypto projects like ICON is ignored by all.

------
ptah
literally printing money

------
1290cc
What I find hilarious is that Zuckerberg has probably been trolling the forums
of bitcoin.org and reddit crypto groups for many months.

And like any good crypto "expert", he spent his time sharing opinions and
copying other peoples source code versus building anything real.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

~~~
1290cc
Which part of my statement is "unsubstantive" the joke or the fact?

~~~
dang
The comment lacks information and repeats common preconceptions in a snarky
way.

~~~
1290cc
Okay.

------
tmp2846
Whether this succeeds or fails it is very good for crypto.

------
rasengan
All I care for is the end of the fiat system and the beginning of freedom for
humanity.

