
Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra - timcc50
https://decrypt.co/7502/facebook-libra-coin-cryptocurrency-launch-calibra
======
mekoka
Let's play a game of predictions.

Regardless of HN's opinion of Facebook (and regardless of my own for that
matter) I predict that this thing will work.

This is only one thing my crystal ball showed me.

Facebook's presence in developing economies is massive. To the point of being
synonymous with "The Internet" in a number of places. But they've had a
nagging problem. People in these economies consume contents, but do not buy.
Even when they have some buying power, access to credit cards is harder to
come by. So they're basically seen as online leeches, and you simply fit them
in the "expense" category of your media production. Also, due to their buying
impotence they're almost _immune_ to advertisement. Over the next few months
it's all going to change. Multiple agreements will be signed with various
financial institutions and probably more with various telecom in those
regions, to allow people to load up their accounts with fbcoins and join the
Great Internet Spending Frenzy. Basically turning them overnight into
consumers, ripe for the picking.

I foresee big media producing companies in the developed world to be the first
to take advantage of this (Disney, Valve, Netflix, YouTube, NYT, various
online courses and certifications, etc). Shipping to those regions remains a
challenge, so only soft goods for now. IKEA and Walmart will allow fbcoins,
but just to be able to sell through their Facebook Store, oh I forgot about
those. Anyways.

Next year, Google and Amazon will announce their own _stablecoin_.

The year after that, Google will announce that they're shutting theirs.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Facebook's hold in developing economies is true. But developing economy's hold
on their Fiat currency is true as well. So much so that, India is planning to
jail anyone who is holding cryptocurrency for 10 years[1]!

If this legislation passes, any computer scientist, mathematician, programmer
who is working with crypto tokens & block chain can technically be held liable
for possessing a crypto currency when they run their program?

Yes, the plan to jail those who hold cryptocurrency in a democratic country is
preposterous; but this shows how sensitive a developing economy could be when
it comes to its money. It's not like the data of their citizens which these
countries give a free run to the hoarders, money is totally different ball
game.

I wonder if Facebook decides to give a free crypto to everyone who holds a FB
account, anyone in India with a FB account will go to jail including those who
proposing such legislations?

P.S I don't hold any cryptocurrency due to its impact on energy and thereby
planet (Also, I'm including this just in case the legislation passes in my
country!).

[1]:[https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/dr...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/draft-
law-proposes-10-year-jail-term-for-dealing-in-
cryptocurrency/articleshow/69693984.cms)

~~~
hjk05
> Yes, the plan to jail those who hold cryptocurrency in a democratic country
> is preposterous

No it isn’t. We jail people who hold child pornography in democratic countries
as well. The core of a democratic country is that it’s governed by
democratically elected representatives, not that it’s citizens be allowed
access to whatever they want independent of criminal consequences.

I get you and others are calling to the sentiment of “how can we be free if we
aren’t free to x” but the value of that sentiment isn’t independent of what X
is. You aren’t free to rob banks and you aren’t free to print you own paper
currency. Just because crypto is digital and “difficult to stop”(it isn’t
though) does not mean that it has to be freely available to business and
individuals. It’s still up to our democratically elected representatives to
decide if they feel private institutions printing money without control will
damage the economy significantly enough to not allow it.

~~~
0x445442
> you aren’t free to print you own paper currency

As far as I know, in the U.S. you are free to print your own paper currency,
just so long as it doesn't conterfeit that which is produced by the Federal
Reserve Bank. Also, there's nothing illegal about conducting transactions with
it either, provided you can find willing trade partners.

~~~
johnnycab
>As far as I know, in the U.S. you are free to print your own paper currency

This is not the case, when a 'private' currency gains traction or seemingly
encroaches a territory, which is traditionally assigned to government ─ it
gets shutdown.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/us/liberty-dollar-
creator...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/us/liberty-dollar-creator-
awaits-his-fate-behind-bars.html)

[https://www.openpr.com/news/25136/TUC-IMPROVING-THE-US-
ECONO...](https://www.openpr.com/news/25136/TUC-IMPROVING-THE-US-ECONOMY-BY-
THE-CIRCULATION-OF-THEIR-PRIVATE-CURRENCY-TODAY.html)

~~~
aatharuv
They called their currency a dollar. If they had called them "freedom rounds",
they would have been fine.

Or if they had been owned by Disney for that matter...

------
vivekd
This is an interesting story and I would like to learn more about libra-coin.
Unfortunately I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias that is
making the opinions here nearly universally one sided.

I think we can say three things fairly uncontroversially in favor of this

1\. The world could use an online independent currency

2\. Adding stability to blockchain currencies and having that work on a large
scale is a good thing

3\. Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook
derives isn't done through force, it's by making a coin better than all the
other coins. Other people are still free to make their competing coins.

That said I understand the detractions that many here are presenting. I just
wish there could be a deeper exploration of both the pros and cons.

~~~
generalk
> 1\. The world could use an online independent currency

I'm not 100% steeped in cryptocurrency theory, and so I don't understand why
this is presented as if it's agreed on by everyone. What problems does the
world have that would be solved by an online, independent [of any nation,
presumably?] currency?

> 2\. Adding stability to blockchain currencies and having

> that work on a large scale is a good thing

Having a blockchain-based currency at a huge scale would be interesting for
many reasons, but I'm not seeing how it's a fiat "good thing," excepting if
you're excited about the technology and waiting for a big player to push it
forward.

> 3\. Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or

> control facebook derives isn't done through force, it's by

> making a coin better than all the other coins. Other

> people are still free to make their competing coins.

I can't buy into the meritocracy/free market purity argument for a currency.
Things are already volatile enough, and sometimes economies collapse and
people's life savings become worthless. "Other people can make competing
coins" sounds an awful lot to me like treating collapse as a feature.

~~~
taurath
> I'm not 100% steeped in cryptocurrency theory, and so I don't understand why
> this is presented as if it's agreed on by everyone. What problems does the
> world have that would be solved by an online, independent [of any nation,
> presumably?] currency?

Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut of every single consumer payment
made in much of the world. That ends up being a very, very big number.

There are many people all over the world without access to banking - they
can't store money, they can't transfer money, and they can't invest money.
That may be someone who has poor credit in the US, or someone who's living in
rural India or Africa. Without access to banking, you are essentially cut off
from globalization.

If you live in a country that has extremely tight currency and economic
controls but with a corrupt government, and are experiencing hyperinflation
(Zimbabwe, Venezuela, others [https://tradingeconomics.com/country-
list/inflation-rate](https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-
rate)), access to alternative currencies can literally be the difference
between life and death for individuals, where the money you make on your
salary will be worthless by the time you get your check.

Plenty of other examples. Whether this is a good solution I don't know, they
just announced it.

~~~
hjk05
> Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut of every single consumer payment
> made in much of the world. That ends up being a very, very big number.

In Denmark we solved this the lowtech way. Visa cards have to be Dual
visa/dancard, where the dancard has extremely low cut limited by
law(0,055$/transaction flat rate)

It’s not hard, it just requires you have politicians capable of dodging the
huge piles of cash MasterCard and Visa throw at them whenever talk of breaking
the duopoly hits the table.

But maybe for the US, something like bitcoin will be the only way forwards,
using technology to try to solve a market problem though “disruptive
technology” when what is really needed is just disruptive politicians.

~~~
baby
But that's the point. Monzo is the best bank in the world and yet it's only
available in the UK. As soon as you're trying to cross a border it becomes
challenging. A cryptocurrency can be a very useful solution here: it skips
decenies of progress to set up an interoperable network for banks and
custodians to use (and users as well if they want to).

~~~
Galanwe
> A cryptocurrency can be a very useful solution here: it skips decenies of
> progress

The fact that it is a _cryto_ currency is merely anecdotal. Its an
implementation detail. It makes people think this currency is actually
distributed as most other crypto currencies, while in fact it's just a
consortium of companies having total control over all aspects (issuance,
destruction, etc.) of the currency.

> set up an interoperable network for banks and custodians to use

This is just plain wrong. It's not banks or custodians that use this currency,
it's just end users and the consortium. Banks are heavily controlled and
regulated. I _mainly_ trust governments and legal systems to take fair
decisions or litigate properly monetary issues. There is nothing like that
here. The consortium of companies owning the currency decide the amount they
want to create, they decide who gets refund and why, etc. I have much more
trust in a country and a judiciary system than a bunch of worldwide companies
to handle my currency.

~~~
CaptainZapp
_The consortium of companies owning the currency decide the amount they want
to create, they decide who gets refund and why_

Don't forget the amount of support they will provide. Looking at major tech
companies and their histories in providing customer support I see a rather
bleak picture here.

This goes also for all those new fangled disruptive app banks. Guess how much
success an N26 (new German app bank) customer had to contact support after
80'000 Euro went missing from his account. Spoiler: Until it was a massive
story in the press, not much.[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N26_(bank)#Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N26_\(bank\)#Controversy)

------
jpmattia
Again: A ledger that is not decentralized is a bank database, not a
cryptocurrency.

As near as I can tell, Zuckbucks are nothing more than the
JPMorganCryptocurrency but with a bigger consortium. The only difference seems
to be who is given write privileges to the database.

~~~
andrewla
The thing that separates this from a bank database is a small thing, but
important, and that's that even the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret
without your authorization, since transactions are signed and the ledger is
public. That's because of the cryptographic primitives used.

I think in the end we have to accept that taxonomies are going to have rough
edges because the map is not the territory. With Bitcoin as the canonical
cryptocurrency there have been a number of experiments that have removed or
added guarantees. A distributed, verifiable, immutable chain of history is
basically git with a couple of extra features, so the lines are necessarily
blurry.

Rather than arguing semantics, the main questions are to what degree it is
censorship-proof, permissionless, and scarce. The third one is the one that is
least clear from the description and whitepaper. It sounds like they're trying
to get the first two as well, but the designation of initial stakeholders
might make that tricky until they can transition to proof-of-stake.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
>the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret without your authorization,
since transactions are signed and the ledger is public

This capability is pretty pointless when the bank can indefinitely suspend
your ability to make transactions. The ability to block transactions is an
essential part of compliance with anti-money-laundering and other banking
regulations.

~~~
jpmattia
> _This capability is pretty pointless when the bank can indefinitely suspend
> your ability to make transactions._

You beat me to it: Having cryptographically signed transactions simply does
not matter when you have to submit the transaction to what Zuck calls a
"validator". The validator will just refuse to validate if your address is on
a blacklist.

The net effect is that the coins are frozen. And since this is a backed
currency, the backing will then be reduced by the amount corresponding to the
frozen coins. This has the exact effect of lessening a user's balance.

Naming it "Byzantine Consensus" in their white paper turns out to be
surprisingly apropos.

~~~
camjohnson26
Maybe we need to question whether the government should have the power to
unilaterally block a transaction. Just because they’ve been able to in the
past doesn’t mean we have to artificially limit technology to let them keep
that power.

In the same way they used to be able to tap your phone, but now we can encrypt
our calls and make that much more difficult. That doesn’t mean encryption
should be illegal.

~~~
bongobongo
No, we really don’t need to question that. Financial laws exist for a good
reason. Nor should some private company have more power than a sovereign
nation just because.

~~~
stale2002
Would you say the same thing about privacy, or speech?

It is bad that there are private companies, that allow me to engage in free
speech, anonymously, without the government knowning my every move?

~~~
bongobongo
No I wouldn’t because that would be dumb

------
beezischillin
I would never ever ever ever trust PayPal, Spotify, Mastercard and the likes
to manage my money.

It simply sounds like lots and lots and lots of happy little "accidents" and
"bugs" waiting to happen for political opponents as they lose their
livelihoods. The people who came up with the whole "Manifest Observable
Behavior" and random "Suspended for Breach of Community Standards" violations
have no place around anyone's money.

It's not even related to protecting a specific political ideology, we can see
daily how these companies treat users regardless of any specific belief or
opinion on politics. I would rather not get / see anyone deplatformed from
owning money should something like this become big.

~~~
drcode
The important question isn't what you or I will do, but what the 90% of people
will do who don't care about privacy/oligopolies.

~~~
tastygreenapple
I'm sure they'll care once someone loses their zuccbuccs for saying "Men are
trash".

~~~
Bakary
Isn't Facebook PR generally oriented towards placating the more SJW themes?
Before the Cambridge Analytica stuff came to light, they were the
establishment left's darling.

------
mwest217
I feel like the biggest losers here are open consensus-based cryptocurrencies
like [Stellar]([https://stellar.org](https://stellar.org)) and
[Ripple]([https://ripple.com](https://ripple.com)). Libra seems to have the
same niche: a consensus-based blockchain protocol rather than proof of work. I
fear that having the clout of a bunch of tech companies behind it will get
consumer buy-in much faster than Stellar will (with IBM World Wire).

A stablecoin backed by a consortium of large companies is an interesting
design choice; it's more intuitive for consumers, but seems like it opens
itself up to arbitrage, taking advantage in price differences between the
different currencies the crypto is pinned to. I much prefer Stellar's
decentralized exchange, where tokens can be issued by any user and exchanges
from one token type to another happen transparently via people advertising
exchange rates.

~~~
dannyw
Neither Ripple and Stellar are open.

~~~
knd775
How is Stellar not open?

~~~
jacobush
Don't know if it's what referred to, but you need to be accepted as a
validating node by the other nodes.

------
WA
> "On the first point, Marcus said that Facebook is enforcing a strict
> separation between users’ social data—their Facebook likes, photos, etc—and
> the financial data that will be available on Libra’s network. There will
> not, he insisted, be a readily available data trove connecting users’
> transactional data to their Facebook profiles, and users’ funds themselves
> will be cryptographically secured. “We don’t want financial data and social
> data to be commingled,” he explained."

WhatsApp showed that eventually, the data is likely to be merged.

~~~
edmundsauto
Was it the data that was merged with WhatsApp, or was it the infrastructure?
AFAICT, FB can't connect what I said on whatsapp to what I say on Messenger
because everything is e2e encrypted. They have metadata (would need it to
route the messages, and for providing the service).

What am I missing?

~~~
WA
Mainly, they said they would not connect your phone number to your FB account,
but then the did.

Furthermore, metadata is super critical already. Don’t forget that WhatsApp
has your location data as well (if you enable it, what most people probably do
to share their location with friends occasionally).

Although I have no proof, knowing FB, I bet they extract meta data from all of
your photos and send them back. I mean, why not? Maybe not all the time, or
maybe not in every version, but given FB‘s track history of giving zero fucks
and trying everything under the sun to gather more data, it wouldn’t surprise
me (same is obviously true for Instagram).

I try to use WhatsApp less and less and I removed all permissions except
contacts. If I want to send a photo, I use the Share capability of iOS and
select from Photos to share with WhatsApp. The insane part is: this behavior
is not doable in Android. You either grant photo access or you can’t send
anything.

~~~
lucasverra
> If I want to send a photo, I use the Share capability of iOS and select from
> Photos to share with WhatsApp

is FB Inc separated from photo metadata that way ?

~~~
WA
From access to your photo library – yes, I'd think so. I don't know if they
extract meta data from the photo you're about to send via WhatsApp. But this
is a different thing than accessing meta data of thousands of photos.

------
dmje
Kind of interested in what this means for a non Facebook user. As one of those
I already feel sometimes marginalised when content is shared on their walled
garden and I need my wife to look at the dates for my kids’ sporting events
because they’re only published on Facebook. Now I’m going to be unable to
carry out financial transactions, too.

~~~
vgoh1
Exactly why I would love to see this fail. I try to be a non-Facebook user,
but everyone uses Messenger, and my local Craigslist has deteriorated because
everyone sells on Facebook now, so I use it for certain things. Every once in
a while, I find myself getting sucked into the "feed" view on my way to the
Facebook Marketplace, especially since on mobile, every time I press "back"
from a listing that I go into details on, it takes me back, not to the
listings that I was looking at, but to the news feed. Facebook knows exactly
what they are doing.

~~~
cafed00d
One of the best things I did was unfollow everything (i.e. friends, family,
pages, celebrities, the kitchen sink, EVERYTHING) on Facebook. This explicit
unfollowing took a few weeks and wasn't something done in a day.

Now, I have the advantage of using facebook for all the useful things I need
such as "Login with Facebook" and Messenger without having the risk of ever
succumbing to the "Feed"

Part of my experience here showed me how Facebook would automatically "make me
follow" all my House/Senate representatives even if I never explicility
followed their pages/profiles.

Ocasionally, I still have to unfollow these auto-followed pages when I log in.
But for the most part, I've been feed-free for a 5-6 months now. It's great!

~~~
JimiofEden
I did this a few years ago when I found myself at a party, looking through my
feed, and it made me start questioning what the hell was wrong with me.

Eliminating the feed entirely was fantastic. Soon I stopped checking my
notifications (if I'm not seeing things on the feed, I'm not reacting or
commenting, and not getting feedback.) Thus the only people I cared to check
in on were literally the people I cared about. As a result, I grew much closer
with those individuals.

Then messenger slowly started being useless, as all previously mentioned good
friends were already either on hangouts/discord and preferred those (Mileage
will obviously vary on this one.) I can still keep it around for my weekly
check to make sure no-one is desperately trying to get a hold of me. And if
they do, I immediately direct them to my chat platform of choice.

Events is still pretty handy, unfortunately, but not something I need to check
in on often at all.

Honestly, I don't miss it at all, and I haven't really lost any value. I'm
about as social as I was when I stopped, and in fact I consider the
friendships I've had in my post-social media era to be stronger than ever.

The only people I have followed right now is a friend currently trying to
break out as a social media author presence, in which case following her
actually matters, and a band that one of my childhood friends is in, who I'm
supporting for the same reason. (Though I often give them engagement elsewhere
when I can.)

------
fnoof
From the white paper:

> "Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial
> infrastructure that empowers billions of people."

They do this by issuing coins in exchange for fiat money, which is held by the
reserve.

> "Interest on the reserve assets will be used to cover the costs of the
> system, ensure low transaction fees, pay dividends to investors who provided
> capital to jumpstart the ecosystem [...]. Users of Libra do not receive a
> return from the reserve."

Conceptually this is a bank, but with no interest returned to users, no
financial oversight from governments, controlled by Silicon Valley's top
companies.

~~~
mensetmanusman
There would be savings for cross border transactions. If governments aren’t
going to support banking the poor, then why does it matter who does it?

~~~
fnoof
It could definitely help a lot of unbanked people. But that seems to be a nice
benefit rather than the core mission.

~~~
drcode
Yes, for unbanked people who, according to the Facebook FAQ, set up an account
using a state-issued ID and jump through a bunch of other hoops that are the
same you would need for a bank account.

------
InTheArena
Certain activist groups put constant pressure on Facebook to “deplatform” and
remove pages for both legitimate in it legitimate reasons.

Now we’re talking about giving Facebook control over the very means to do
financial transactions. How long Before this also becomes weapononized, by
Facebook, or by activists?

there is a reason why popular currency systems has been the purview of
governments. We’re creating an awful lot of social repercussions by allowing
corporations to own the basic financial fabric.

~~~
smsm42
I predict if it happens, demand to cut off $BAD_PEOPLE from the service will
start the next day the service is launched. And if it is technically possible,
the demands will be complied with the next day after that, for some values of
$BAD_PEOPLE. Nobody wants to be a platform for moving terrorist money, right?
Or drug money? Or alt-right money? Or gun manufacturers money? Or pro-life
money? Or wrong-presidential-candidate money? Or persons-whose-opinions-I-
don't-like money?

~~~
EdSharkey
Hear hear!

------
freshfey
Official site: [https://developers.libra.org/](https://developers.libra.org/)
Whitepaper: [https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/](https://libra.org/en-
US/white-paper/)

~~~
news_hacker
Technical whitepaper [PDF]:
[https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-
bl...](https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-
blockchain.pdf)

Details on the Move programming language [PDF]:
[https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-
move-a...](https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-move-a-
language-with-programmable-resources.pdf)

------
bufferoverflow
What I really don't get is the regulatory aspect. They are creating a
financial derivative asset/instrument. To be moved across the borders. In what
freaking universe will the regulators not be all over it with endless KYC/ML
rules?

~~~
AJ007
There aren’t enough public details yet but I think the “blockchain” part is
really just between all of the partners, not between the users. So when user A
in the US sends to user B in Pakistan, the activity is really only between the
two parties which converted the local currencies from the end users. That
wouldn’t be particular different from user A sending a Western Union payment
to user B in Pakistan.

Conceivably Facebook has all of this user history and is able to make a guess
if someone is a real person. Probably they know a lot more than a bank would
know. That could take care of some aspects of the KYC issues too.

Using the word cryptocurrency is fairly misleading, because as far as I can
tell, it isn’t really one. Blockchain, maybe, but I don’t even know what that
word means.

~~~
justinmchase
Thats right, its not distributed like bitcoin but all of the nodes are
"trusted" by each other and the block chain itself would only be accessible
for users and you would not be able to add a node without being a massive
corporation which invests and joins their consortium.

No idea how new companies are supposed to rise with these players securing
their monopoly like this.

------
jmull
I kinda doubt cryptocurrency/blockchain tech will be anything but an
implementation detail in this project.

Assuming this catches on, the idea that Facebook and it's other partners would
let this get out of their control seems very unlikely -- and if it did get out
of their control, I think they'd simply abandon, disavow, and/or fork it.

The appeal of this to users is going to be integration with the social
networks these companies run, so they are holding effective veto power since
they can change its relevance to low at any time.

Meanwhile, the partners will be tracking every transaction and monetizing that
information. Apparently, you can use a pseudonym when using this currency, but
I'm sure they will connect any pseudonyms you use to your profile the second
you first use them. Wonderful.

------
baby
I'm biased as I'm working on this project. But I'm super happy it's finally
out there :) There's a lot of really cool cryptography and tech on this
project and there's still a lot for people to discover!

~~~
imw
There's a lot of interesting physics in building thermonuclear weapons.
Doesn't mean you should do it.

Your talents could be used to help the world. Instead, they are being used to
enclose common spaces and pull apart the fabric of society. Get a better job?

~~~
baby
I appreciate your point of view, FWIW I believe that I'm doing net positive
work for the world.

If you don't believe such projects should exist, you can at least agree that
such project will inevitably happen and that it is a good thing that they have
people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction.

I will write more about the things I work on and why I think these are good
things on my blog www.cryptologie.net

Hope we can have some civilized discussions :)

~~~
_bxg1
> you can at least agree that such project will inevitably happen and that it
> is a good thing that they have people like me onboard to influence them in
> the right direction.

Sorry, what? What gives a random person a reason to think you're someone who
will "influence them in the right direction"?

~~~
literallycancer
Probably because he's at least willing to have a discussion about it? Instead
of going "fuck you, you are just jealous of my lambo collection"?

~~~
_bxg1
Okay, but he's also clearly absorbed Zuckerberg's savior complex. Politeness
may help a conversation but it doesn't qualify him to make world-shaking
ethical decisions.

------
amasad
Private money is not a new thing. In fact, the predecessor to paper money was
retail bank issued notes. I think it's still the case in Scotland:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_Scotland](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_Scotland)

The concept of nationalized central banks is new.

~~~
ghaff
A couple years ago in London, I seriously confused a young retail clerk by
presenting her with Scottish banknotes presumably left over from an earlier
trip to Edinburgh. She had to go get her supervisor to assure her that this
was indeed real money.

~~~
andrewaylett
It's really not, though.

OK, it's more "real" than an IOU I hand you, because I know that in order to
issue their IOU they actually had to deposit an equivalent amount of cash with
the Bank of England, but it's not legal tender -- while in practice pretty
much anyone should be comfortable using it as a medium of exchange, the only
_guaranteed_ use of a Scottish note is to exchange it with the issuer for a
Bank of England note (or, in Scotland, coins), which you can then proceed to
use to pay your taxes or other bills because they _are_ legal tender (value
limits apply to specific denominations south of the border, you need to use
pound coins north of the border).

But yes, in practice, real money. Just don't try telling anyone they've _got_
to accept it, because there's no such obligation.

~~~
umanwizard
No retailer has to accept anything. I can set up a shop in London that _only_
accepts Scottish banknotes and not English ones. Or that only accepts Mexican
Pesos or Bitcoin for that matter.

From the Royal Mint's website:

> Legal tender has a very narrow and technical meaning in the settlement of
> debts. [...] It does not mean that any ordinary transaction has to take
> place in legal tender or only within the amount denominated by the
> legislation. Both parties are free to agree to accept any form of payment
> whether legal tender or otherwise according to their wishes.

~~~
redwards510
Didn't I just read a story about the Amazon retail stores in SF being forced
to accept cash, not just credit cards linked to someone's amazon account?

~~~
umanwizard
I don’t know, but I was referring to the situation in England (as far as I
understand it). It could be different in other jurisdictions.

------
schmichael
This reads a lot like the founding of the Federal Reserve:

> [The Federal Reserve] had several key components, including a central bank
> with a Washington-based headquarters and fifteen branches located throughout
> the U.S. in geographically strategic locations, and a uniform elastic
> currency based on gold and commercial paper.

1\. Geographically dispersed

2\. Value elastic but secured by assets

3\. Controlled by a small group of people

4\. Goal of stable long term prices

Key differences between this and the US federal reserve seem to be:

1\. Libra involves no state actors

2\. Libra is pay-to-play (vs representative democracy for directors of the US
Fed)

3\. Libra has no employment objective

4\. Libra has no interest objective (outside of maintaining investment in its
reserve assets)

5\. Libra is "fully backed by real assets"

While personal socio-political beliefs make #1 a huge concern for me, and #2
has been widely critiqued already, #3 - the US Fed's employment objective - is
an interesting difference to me.

I have not read all of the Libra material yet, but so far this belief is the
only reference I've found to Libra's relationship to work:

> We believe that people have an inherent right to control the fruit of their
> legal labor.

Seems simple enough on the face of it. An extremist could perhaps liken it to
"taxes are theft," but I don't see evidence of that in one vague sentence.

I think instead this outlines a key philosophical difference between the US
Fed and the Facebook Fed:

The US Fed has an objective of (indirectly through labor) distributing
capital.

The Facebook Fed has an objective of easing the flow of capital.

The Facebook Fed therefore is neutral, amoral, technocratic in its approach:
make what you have easier to use.

Whereas the US fed (and I suspect other federal reserves) have a non-fiscal
social component builtin: increase capital distribution through availability
of labor.

~~~
justinmchase
Can we just call it the global reserve?

~~~
schmichael
I prefer the Facebook Reserve as it reflects its largely private corporate
roots.

Update: Considering Zuckerberg holds a majority of the voting shares in
Facebook, I don't think calling it The Zuckerberg Reserve and Zuckbucks is at
all unfair.

------
danny8000
I remember Disney Dollars as a kid that were pegged to US 1:1 and could be
used at any Disney-owned property. They were basically gift cards with no
expiration date. They ended up not being cost efficient, so Disney
discontinued them in 2016.

So, if the Libra ends up costing more to run than in earns (hardware,
software, labor, and the cost of pegging it to a basket of currencies), then
they won’t continue funding it. Since it’s not going to be a speculative
currency like bitcoin, how will they pay or it? Will they take a transaction
fee?

I also keep on reading that it will help the unbanked in the developing world
facilitate payments. I guess it can be risky and hard to carry a lot of cash
around for large purchases in parts of the world. But for this to work do you
need better identity management? Or if you hold the cell phone, you hold the
wallet? If it’s target is micro payments, then there are already many
expanding options.

So that leave cross-border transfers, which is a huge thread to the US’s
economic dominance. It is much harder to embark Iran if you don’t control the
currency they sell their own for.

~~~
leovander
>Since it’s not going to be a speculative currency like bitcoin, how will they
pay or it?

[https://youtu.be/HnXKE0nfAjI?t=41](https://youtu.be/HnXKE0nfAjI?t=41)

But seriously, an even more direct connection between ads and what you buy.

------
tomglynch
I'm very concerned this will give Facebook even greater control. I think it is
likely Facebook will push Libra towards people in countries where their
currency is volatile, such that it becomes the standard. I do see the
positives, that they can now rely on a currency to be stable. But what do you
think, could this be an issue and if so, do you think this can be overall
beneficial for people from these places?

------
mattferderer
What I haven't heard is how they plan to help US Citizens properly report
taxes on any gain or loss when spending Libra.

Either the IRS will need to look the other way or this will become a huge
hurdle for mass adoption in the US.

My hope is this helps get the IRS moving faster at making some laws based
around using cryptocurrency to buy & sell goods. I do get that this isn't an
easy decision to make. At some point someone will have to make it though. You
cannot expect people to use a different currency on a daily basis & report any
gain or loss on the currency at the time of transaction. It would also be an
accounting nightmare to decide which coins you spent at the time of purchase.

My guess is they're waiting for cryptocurrency to become popular enough that
it forces their hand & they have to create some type of leniency regarding
gains & losses on each transaction.

~~~
lawrenceg
From my understanding, the US market is not a priority for them with this
project. They're looking at the unbanked markets first and foremost.

~~~
creato
I think that's PR bullshit to make this sound like a charitable endeavor.

------
knocte
While I agree with most commenters here that are skeptical about a
surveillance-based currency, I'm very positive about the idea of having
mainstream apps such as Whatsapp and Messenger introduce the concept of paying
with your phone without needing to link your accounts with any bank account or
debit/credit card, because the money is in theory being held by your device
(under the hood, just holding a private key of a "blockchain" account that has
a non-decentralized-stablecoin balance, I know).

This will enable people to start thinking of money in a more pseudo-P2P way,
get comfortable with it, and in turn allow them to start understanding better
what cryptocurrencies really are (which Libra is not). What cryptocurrency and
Libra share is, at least, the concept of ownership via public/private key
cryptography, as opposed to identity-based systems such as
paypal/banks/credit/debit. This has some UX-side-effects that people will
start to learn, such as the push vs pull system (e.g. it's not anymore the
merchant who scans your QR code, but the other way around, the customer scans
the merchant's payment-info).

~~~
thefounder
What's the point of public/private keys if the whole thing can be reversed,
recovered and changed by FB with no transparency for the outside world?

The private key becomes just a better password, like a SSH key based
authentication. Actually I'm pretty sure the wallet will not even require any
key. You will be able to sign in with facebook.

I see no P2P payments here as everything is really validated by FB and all the
data is kept under fb control. The client sees just an old good REST/RPC API
with no public access to the backend. The client wallets will be no
better/powerful than a paypal client app/wallet. There will be no blockchain
to download...as matter of fact you won't even be able to tell if FB really
uses blockchain behind the curtains.

Not to mention that you need to "signup" for an account and verify it with
facebook before you can receive any "coin". In reality there is no coin. Is no
different than paypal really.

~~~
sweeneyrod
> The client sees just an old good REST/RPC API with no public access to the
> backend. The client wallets will be no better/powerful than a paypal client
> app/wallet. There will be no blockchain to download...as matter of fact you
> won't even be able to tell if FB really uses blockchain behind the curtains.

What is your basis for this? It implies that the fairly detailed whitepapers
describing the blockchain are an elaborate hoax, which seems unlikely.

~~~
thefounder
You need permission to access this blockchain so unless you are one of the
facebook/libra association members you don't know what database is used. In
practical terms it doesn't really matter because you can't access it anyway.
It's an implementation detail.

~~~
sweeneyrod
I don't think this is true. It will have permissioned validator nodes (at
least initially), but that doesn't mean it will be opaque to clients.

------
leshokunin
It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be
issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon
Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to
operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent
copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the
network.”

That sounds amazingly dystopian. I mean, that’s literally a money built on an
oligarchy. By design.

I understand people trust these services ( to the extent they keep using
them), but the playing field should be flatter in crypto. Unlike the article’s
suggestions that Ripple is toast, I can imagine it’s putting such coins in a
position to be very competitive, more open, and not run by the companies
above.

~~~
acesubido
> That sounds amazingly dystopian. I mean, that’s literally a money built on
> an oligarchy. By design.

IMO, it's a small step towards a better direction. The "validator" consensus
(oligarchy) is a much more transparent/inclusive solution compared to the
closed financial ecosystems of Wechat/Alipay/Paytm/Grab. If Libra is an
oligarchy, closed financial systems are dictatorships

~~~
m-i-l
_> If Libra is an oligarchy, closed financial systems are dictatorships_

Given the global financial system is not controlled by one individual, it
isn't a Dictatorship (power of one) but is more like a form of Oligarchy
(power of the few). As for which form of Oligarchy each are, I'd argue that
the existing financial system is more of a Technocracy (i.e. you need to know
what you are doing to be one of the few) whereas Libra is a Plutocracy (you
need to be wealthy to be one of the few) or even possibly a Kleptocracy
depending on how they actually run it and what their true motives are.

~~~
acesubido
> whereas Libra is a Plutocracy (you need to be wealthy to be one of the few)

Agreed. The same way governments require a large amount of capital to be a
bank to ensure depositors of liquidity. You need to have capital to back the
Libra tokens, otherwise it can get pretty scary, just like USD Tether
shenanigans.

> or even possibly a Kleptocracy depending on how they actually run it and
> what their true motives are.

Banks, Central Banks, Governments, etc. whatever. Their motives are exactly
"secret" when it comes to managing currencies. They all gear towards enriching
their currency and making it more valuable. So yeah for this "oligarchy", I'd
bet it's the same, Kleptocracy it is.

~~~
m-i-l
I think this may be conflating individuals with corporate entities. Certainly
from a corporate entity perspective both have significant capital
requirements. But from an individual perspective, to be an influential figure
at a central bank you will have had to have undergone years of relevant
training, passed regulatory exams, and typically have proved yourself in a
related position over a long period of time, hence considering it more of
Technocracy. However, to be an influential figure in something like Libra, you
just need a shed load of cash, and can have precisely zero understanding of
modern finance, hence my seeing it more of a Plutocracy, or even Kleptocracy.
Broadening this out beyond Libra, if you want to be a leading figure in one of
the more cult-like cryptocurrencies, you also need a lot of blind faith and be
good at rousing your followers, so there is an element of Theocracy in there
too. I know in the early days anyone with a bit of technical knowledge could
set one up without having access to large amounts of capital, and there was
talk of this "democratising money", but those days are long gone.

The main central banks usually have a monetary policy clearly defined by their
governments. Typically this will include things like "target of keeping
inflation at 2%"[0]. This is not exactly secret. It can however be very
difficult for people without the necessary backgrounds to fully understand.
But I guess we are living in an era of short attention spans and distrust of
experts, which provides a fertile breeding ground for cryptocurrency
conspiracy theorists to exploit for personal profit.

[0] [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-
policy](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy)

------
JaimeThompson
Given the absolutely horrible record of many of the companies involved in this
in regards to not abusing our private information, Facebook using phone
numbers given for 2FA is but one example, why should we trust this?

I am sure that if they leak or misuse our private information that the TOS
will protect them from having to make us whole again...

------
JaRail
I'm surprised to see Coinbase as a founding member. I wonder if they'll allow
direct conversions between Libra and other cryptocurrencies.

It's interesting to note that there aren't any device manufacturers as
members. No Google, Apple, Samsung, HTC, etc. That's going to make this an
uphill battle for them. It implies that those companies have their own ideas.
Or, perhaps, they just aren't willing to partner with FB right now given their
toxic reputation for privacy.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
I think it makes perfect sense for Coinbase to tap into this flow.

~~~
JaRail
I mean, I'm more surprised they were invited to the party. You know something
like this will immediately spur countries to denounce it as facilitating money
laundering, terrorism, the collapse of the civilized world, etc. I would have
thought they'd stick with PayPal as their main partner to interface with
banks. It's a huge opportunity for Coinbase but they bring the political
baggage of every other cryptocurrency along with them.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Yeah, but Libra could do due diligence when the money enters their system.
Sure, things are a bit "informal" on the BTC/ETH side, but I'm pretty sure
Libra will strive to meet the demands from governments.

That being said, yeah, wild claims can and probably will be made by various
entities.

------
cujic9
To me, the biggest roadblock to success is the number of corporate
stakeholders.

For this to succeed, the advantages of having that many stakeholders (big
budget, large audience) must outweigh the disadvantages (two-dozen different
and often conflicting opinions).

I've never seen a large number of corporations collaborate successfully. A
strategic partnership between two companies is hard enough. Two dozen? Good
luck.

Especially when some of the partners have a vested interest in this failing.
(Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Stripe.)

My bet is on existing crypto-currencies solving this problem becuse they can
focus on a solution without being constrained by corporate interests.

If Libra launches, I predict the following:

1\. It will be very, very delayed. 2\. Facebook will take sole ownership and
shed all the corporate partners. 3\. At that point, they will give up on
crypto and just build (or buy) a plain old peer-to-peer payment system.

Alternative 3: They will piggy back on an existing crypto currency.

~~~
drcode
A very insightful comment- These big companies have nothing to lose by signing
up as a "partner" for the big press release, but have nothing to gain by
helping facebook beyond the initial PR blitz and are either going to bow out
or act as blockers to FB's ambitious plans.

------
chj
It's a currency, but I don't see how it is crypto. No mining, centralized
control by a few validators. Old wine in new bottles.

~~~
Nasrudith
Mining isn't essential to cryptocurrency - all that is needed is cryotographic
verification. It may be heretical to their ethos but that doesn't disqualify
it even if the goals vastly differ.

~~~
topmonk
Except that when the signers are corporations beholden to governments, the
freedom to transact with whoever you choose is lost.

This limits its value as a currency. It's like the “7 degrees of seperation”
thing. You might not be doing anything with librecoin that the governments of
the world don't like, in the network of where the currency could flow would
like to but can't it has a cascading effect which severely hampers the size
the network can grow to.

For example, if you trade with John who trades with Alice who then tries to
trade with Eve, but Eve doesn't want to use your currency becausesshe's doing
something Facebook or the U.S. government doesn't like, then Alice won't want
to use it because she can't trade with Eve, and then John will be turned off
to it for the same reason all the way back to you.

------
moosey
If this succeeds, it will be a data collection tool the likes of which the
world has never seen, which is why so many companies are willing to put their
name on it. The data, along with ML/AI, and our contemporary understanding of
the human mind, means that this is a major step towards control that we can't
understand.

Dr. Harari explains it better than I do in "21 Lessons for the 21st Century",
but this tool is part of a suite of data collection utilities that will be
dissected and used in order to further subjugate our mental energies to the
will of the tech giants running our phones. If you don't believe that this is
already happening, hang out with some teenagers. I would say that there is a
large contingent of people for whom this is already true, and once that group
is large enough, then how can you assert yourself against that pipeline of
information?

Every bit of data we give away for free is a massive mistake. I hope that
Europe figures out a regulatory framework that works.

~~~
renaudg
There is at least this from Zuckerberg's announcement : "Calibra will be
regulated like other payment service providers. Any information you share with
Calibra will be kept separate from information you share on Facebook."

~~~
jerf
I suspect they are using different definitions of "information", "share",
"separate", "Calibra", and "Facebook" than a naive person reading that
sentence might expect.

I don't mean that as pure snark; I'm dead serious. The legal definition of all
those things, the definitions they can get away with using, and the
definitions that a normal person would expect from reading that sentence are
probably three very different things.

Plus, along with general lack of confidence in Facebook keeping its mitts off
of juicy data given their checkered history, I have even less confidence that
the promised wall will be there going forward, and that there won't be an
excited, breathless announcement in a year or two about how ecstatic they are
to bring you awesome new services powered by the data they're going to get
from tearing down that wall and isn't it all just so wonderful.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _they are using different definitions_

This is a PR statement. Facebook and Zuckerberg have straight up lied about
this sort of thing before [1].

No need for complexity (they’re weaselling their words) when telling it simply
(they’re lying again) will do.

[1] [https://www.fastcompany.com/4017734/whatsapp-breaks-
promise-...](https://www.fastcompany.com/4017734/whatsapp-breaks-promise-will-
now-share-user-data-with-facebook)

~~~
la_barba
BTW, I read your link and it was the founder of WhatsApp that 'promised' it.
While I wouldn't be surprised if FB made the promise and then broke it, that
doesn't seem to be what happened here.

~~~
obmelvin
Call him naive but he seemed to actually believe that to be the case. Mark's
desire to renege on that promise is one of the main reasons he left FB.

~~~
la_barba
Well, if I sold a chat application that was loosing hundreds of millions of
dollars, for $19 billion dollars to FB.. I'd be wondering how they're ever
going to recover the money. Its easy to paint one side as the villain in this.

------
rollulus
How is this going to fly with the constant flood of (justified) hate that
Facebook is receiving the past year? Apart from the technology, I feel like
they have more chance if they'd brand it without the Facebook name on it.

~~~
loceng
Well, if an army of HODLers develops who buy into this Facebook coin think
they can make profit off of holding it - then there will be a growing body who
promote it and speak positively of it, and not care about Facebook's other
wrongdoings because money. Those big name brands also already buying into it
means quite the global powerhouse of marketing ability to onboard people into
something that is relatively unknown of what could unfold. It should be
democratic governments working together to develop this and not private
entities who aren't elected and are known to lobby and influence
politicians/policy for their own good. There's a reason financial regulations
developed, and because they're poorly enforced currently doesn't mean the
solution is abandonment.

~~~
bradenb
Libra is a stablecoin, holding it isn't going to make you rich.

~~~
loceng
It's not necessarily that straight-forward - and people shouldn't blindly
trust Facebook and the other unelected global brands with 'voting rights' to
make decisions related to the function of such a monetary system.

------
prepend
“Moreover, Marcus insisted that the $10 million buy in would not grant
validators exclusive access to users’ transactional data.“

So they don’t get exclusive data. That’s an odd statement, it just means that
data can be sold to others as well.

~~~
jarfil
If the blockchain is public, the transactions themselves are public, so can't
really be sold. The association between user data and transactions, might be
valuable though.

~~~
prepend
I think Facebook will be in the best position to link identity to wallets.
Doling this out to initial backers and anyone who pays later on would keep the
truth of the statement.

------
ei8htyfi5e
I've lived in China and seen how this plays out. Facebook's new Libra
Blockchain will be a centralized bank but way more dangerous. It will allow
for a worldwide social credit system. If Facebook decides to remove you for
wrong speak or wrong think, your money and many services will be inaccessible.
Further, they have no mandate like the central bank does to increase
employment. Their mandate is to make money for corporations. This will lead to
global social unrest.

This will put some third-world countries in complete control by Facebook. I
mean, whoever runs the currency, is the country. But in this case, it will be
completely controlled, as it's also many of those countries main source of
communication.

Therefore, if Facebook's Libra is a countries main currency and social
network, that country will be owned by Facebook.

Finally, the regulations on crypto and blockchain are still new. This is in
Facebook's advantage as they can start lobbying to have these laws in their
favor. They can argue for less transparency, as they are a bank, and this fits
with their new privacy marketing message.

This is extremely subversive and Europe is already rightly pushing back.
America will be next. On one hand, I love seeing the existing financial system
panic when new technology comes out. On the other hand, under no circumstances
will I accept a world where Facebook started the one world currency.

~~~
tjkrusinski
This isn't the case, your wallet is not tied to your Facebook account.

~~~
FridgeSeal
Yeah not now, but given everything else they’ve done, it wouldn’t be a
surprised if they introduced it as a feature later down the line.

~~~
allannienhuis
That's kind of the definition of FUD spreading, isn't it? How is anyone
supposed to defend themselves against accusations like that?

~~~
FridgeSeal
> _That 's kind of the definition of FUD spreading, isn't it? How is anyone
> supposed to defend themselves against accusations like that?_

By not being an incredibly shady company in the first place? Am I just
supposed to disregard everything FB is notorious for, just in case any
concerns I raise might be FUD?

------
Cakez0r
If they succeed in getting mass adoption for this thing, I feel like the
companies on-board have basically bootstrapped themselves to sovereignty.
It'll be interesting to see how that plays out, if nothing else!

~~~
perlgeek
I'm sure the IRS and/or FTC will like to have a word with them about that.

I'm no expert in US law at all, but my impression as an outsider is that
anything that could look like money laundering or a way to hide financial
transactions will not be looked kindly upon, and that slapping the "crypto"
moniker on this new currency won't make much difference.

------
giaour
Is there some legal shield that prevents regulators from simply saying that
Libra is a bank and therefore subject to regulation as such?

~~~
rolltiide
No, not really. In various economic regions there can be regulators that rule
this way but they won't be able to stop the commerce from happening with this
currency. The Libra Foundation can also just register banks in local
jurisdictions to check a box. Many incumbent services have done this for
decades, like Paypal.

Cryptocurrency removes the ability of the state to whitelist transactions, as
their power only existed from being able to regulate an intermediary. This is
the anti-fragile nature of cryptocurrency.

Facebook's validator nodes (corporate consortiums) are a compromise on the
anti-fragile nature, but not by much.

~~~
drcode
If the state can't whitelist transactions, FB will likely not be permitted to
launch this currency- The state has every incentive to block any banks from
doing business with FB in that case, because they'll invoke terrorist
financing and drug sales as blocking issues.

------
samdung
_A basket of bank deposits and short-term government securities will be held
in the Libra Reserve for every Libra that is created, building trust in its
intrinsic value._

Soon 'The Libra Reserve' will hold only a 10th of the total Libra Coins in
circulation (fractional reserve). A global federal reserve in the making.

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

It's like one to one copy of the traditional monetary system with speed of
transactions improved. The volatility of low-volatile assets still
contradictive in the long term (I mean just ~5 years) So I don't see any
innovative approach in the terms of social order and decentralization.

~~~
Spivak
Your tone is too cynical, this is _exactly_ what it is and what payment
processors have been dreaming of for years. A banking system where money can
be moved instantly without weird batching, holidays, manual intervention, and
all the rest of the legacy crap that plagues current banking.

I'm all for it!

~~~
_bxg1
Except that control will be "liberated" from governments and placed in the
hands of an oligopoly of global corporations. Which is _way_ worse.

~~~
themacguffinman
How will this liberate control from governments? Libra will still be pegged to
government controlled currencies, libra is just a proxy for transportation.
Governments can still regulate transactions that cross borders, the same laws
will apply and will actually be easier to enforce because the libra network is
managed by legal corporations rather than an anonymous pool of users.

~~~
_bxg1
> Libra will still be pegged to government controlled currencies

For the time being. That's just part of the bootstrapping process, to avoid
volatility in the short-term.

> Governments can still regulate transactions that cross borders

And how do you suggest they'll do that?

~~~
themacguffinman
> That's just part of the bootstrapping process, to avoid volatility in the
> short-term.

How would you stop pegging libra to a currency without destroying or
distorting enormous values of libra that existing owners have and therefore
permanently destroying trust in libra? I don't see any real substance to this
sort of vague cynical claim that "they're just biding their time".

> And how do you suggest they'll do that?

By applying the same transaction reporting laws to libra (which have
equivalent currency value) that already apply to bank-to-bank transactions.
The key validators in libra transactions are legal corporations unambiguously
within government jurisdiction.

------
the_duke
I'd argue that credit cards are conceptually not very different. Users pay the
fees both directly (annual costs, interest) and indirectly (increased prices
due to vendor fees), and the shareholders reap the benefits.

Just like credit cards, and the various digital currencies like Bitcoin (where
exchanges have plenty of regulation and reporting requirements to deal with!),
this will be subject to regulation and governmental oversight.

Note that I'm not a fan of this at all, due to the company behind it.

But it's not a groundbreaking new concept, or very scary if seen in isolation.

~~~
navigatesol
> _Users pay the fees both directly (annual costs, interest)_

Both avoidable. Many zero fee cards, interest only on monthly balances. Some
zero fee cards even offer rewards (read: net positive over cash).

> _indirectly (increased prices due to vendor fees)_

I'd need to see some data that the convenience of credit cards to both
consumer and retailer has _increased_ prices. I _do_ know that explicitly
raising prices to cover fees for card using customers is against most merchant
account terms of service and you can report retailers that do so.

~~~
brd529
It’s a total tax on the entire ecosystem. Every merchant that chooses to
accept credit cards has to build 2-3% into their margins to cover the
interchange fees. It’s often against their agreement with visa/mc to charge
the fees for credit transactions only and so they build them into the base
cost.

~~~
the_duke
As a side note, the situation is a bit better in Europe, where considerable
regulation was introduced recently. With mixed but positive results.
Interchange fees were capped to 0.3% for credit cards.

This is a nice summary if you are interested:
[https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-
insights/insight...](https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-
insights/insight/18-months-impact-interchange-fee-regulation-european-union-
cards-market)

------
v7p1Qbt1im
This seems to be Facebooks WeChat play. It makes absolute sense for them to do
this and there is very little friction for onboarding.

I can see them adding contracts (rental for example) to the chain at some
point.

Validators are hand picked. So it‘s distributed but no really that much.
Again, it makes sense from a business perspective. But it‘s certainly
expanding FBs power and influence as a platform even more. I can see this
getting pretty crazy in developing countries where FB might be the platform
for everything at this point. Concerning.

------
ajconway
From the description, it’s a pseudonymous network with publicly observable
transactions. I get that Facebook doesn’t have the best track record in regard
to privacy, but it’s not immediately obvious which exact aspect of privacy
should we be worried about when using this network.

------
asaph
> The aim, then, is to get to 100 new validators by 2020, and achieve
> something close to 1,000 transactions a second—roughly 200 times the sum
> Bitcoin can currently handle, and around half the capacity of Visa.

My reactions to the above:

1\. 1000 transactions per second seems low. This doesn't feel very scalable to
me.

2\. Visa has capacity to handle _only_ around 2000 transactions per second? I
would have assumed it was higher. Matching or exceeding the capacity of Visa
feels more within the reach of a startup than I thought.

~~~
marviel
After some sleuthing, it appears the semi-theoretical TPS is closer to 24,000,
though the average is around 2k.

[1] [https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-
tools/...](https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-
tools/retail.html)

------
Moxdi
this is giving the power of governments to tech companies, and im not sure how
i feel about that, at least bitcoin is truly decentralized

~~~
Bakary
The democratization that bitcoin was supposed to bring was fatally undermined
anyway as it just created yet another caste of wealthy early adopters.

------
laurent123456
I'm curious how it will work exactly. I guess people will need to buy this
currency with real money, and then they can spend it on these services. But
why would anyone bother to do this when they can directly use their
debit/credit card? Or is the plan to someone push people to use this currency
by either giving them discount initially, or by not giving any other
alternative means of payments?

~~~
fnoof
It’s targeted at countries that don’t have such wide adoption of credit/debit
cards.

------
Too
Reminder what happens when WeChat becomes your currency:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-
blog-48552907](http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48552907)

------
clearfund
What this truly mimics is a 'security' analogous to a basket of foreign
currency traded as an ETF. Once you give them US $1 it is backed by a POOL of
currency from multiple countries (i.e. the other people who have traded their
currency for Libra).

Once you decide to take your US $1 you will get back a different amount based
on the underlying value of the pool based on the fluctuating FX market. May be
>=<...no one will know.

Given they are seeking to bring in "underbanked" people (i.e. the charitable
patina on this operation) there will be a focused % of currency in the pool
from countries with a high % of underbanked people. Logic says this will
likely be less stable currency than say the US $, etc.

Thus, your US $ will be diluted by "lesser" or more "volatile" currencies and
will diminish the purchase power of your US $1. Conversely it will increase
the purchase power of the lesser currency.

Thoughts?

~~~
helen___keller
I don't think that's how this works. It's pegged to a basket of currencies, so
the value will match that basket. The composition of the basket isn't tied who
chooses to acquire Libra.

------
imjustsaying
>A smattering of nonprofits, which didn’t have to pay the $10 million entry
fee, also populates the consortium to make sure not everyone can be corrupted
by financial incentives.

Is this a euphemism for 'stuffing the ballot box with nonprofits your wife and
friends and are on'?

------
seanalltogether
> Indeed, that’s why Calibra, the wallet software that will hold Libra Coins,
> was made a subsidiary of Facebook

The big question for me is whether or not wallets and therefore transactions
can be created without needing an 'account' somewhere, just like all other
cryptocurrencies. Can I participate in the economy anonymously or do all
wallets need to be registered like a traditional bank account.

~~~
thefounder
You need to sign up and verify your account before you can do anything. Think
of this like paypal with blockchain behind the scenes instead of Oracle/Sql or
whatever they use as db

~~~
conanbatt
Yes, but with pseudonimity. This makes it a lot more censorship resistant
(which is PP's main weakness).

~~~
snarf21
It is not pseudonymous. You must supply AML and KYC documents to FB to
participate. FB says they intend to fully comply with all government requests.
FB will know exactly who owns all the money at all times.

~~~
conanbatt
Thats on purchase, not on exchange. The same way you can launder money with
Tether.

~~~
snarf21
But if they control the only/main wallet, generating new keys doesn't help.
Maybe there will be wallets they don't control but most people won't use them.
They will want the simplicity of user search that being integrated with FB
provides. /shrug

~~~
conanbatt
I'm not savvy enough to understand the legal nuances. They say the allow
pseudonimity, which for me means they will not control user-to-user
transactions, which means anything goes at exchange time. It will be different
if you try to get the cash out of the system, but if you find a large enough
Libra market you can live off-grid forever (theoretically).

~~~
thefounder
You can't create a new user without to verify it. All the transactions are
monitored(i.e for fraud prevention so expect to receive "suspicious activity"
emails and your account frozen). What do you mean off the grid? You don't have
access to the blockchain.

~~~
conanbatt
This depends on the implementation of pseudonymity. Cash is controlled on the
atm, but not when it changes hands. If Libra will allow to move the money
internationally, it cant be really monitoring each transaction.

------
kerng
Facebook is notorious for not being able to control their platform and leak
data for various reasons due to bugs and lack of due diligence (to keep at
non-malicious).

If they become a bank I certainly would not put my money in there.

------
jillesvangurp
Facebook decided to reinvent the wheel and make it closed source. IMHO this is
a mistake and a bad idea for any wannabe blockchain platform. I am curious
about their motives for doing this. I'm guessing that it is simply that their
plan is the same as that of any traditional payment solution: create a walled
garden and profit through transaction fees. This requires a closed ecosystem.

In terms of design, this actually looks a lot like Ripple/Stellar. The
difference being that those two are open source and anyone can run an
independent validator. There's a growing number of those. And with IBM
building world wire on top of Stellar together with a few dozen banks, here's
now some traction for that platform at least.

It might still work for Facebook and I would not be surprised to learn that
they took some of the Apache/MIT licensed code of either platform. but I'd say
they'll have huge issues with people simply not trusting them with their
money. They will also need links to other platforms via some exchanges. Again,
Stellar comes to mind. It comes with an exchange and an ecosystem of fintech
players already connected to that.

Facebook is of course not the only company planning to do their own coin.
Telegram has similar plans and there are a gazillion of dapps on Ethereum and
similar chains. Most of these seem to be struggling to find meaningful amounts
of users. Unlocking crypto for the wider public is not something that anyone
has accomplished yet. FB might pull this off given their large user base.

------
newscracker
> Facebook says its “stablecoin,” will empower billions and underpin a
> stunningly ambitious global economy, _without selling your data._

I wonder how many millions of people were drinking their favorite beverage
while reading this and spat it out on whatever/whoever was in front of them!

It’s astonishing that after all these years and all the scandals, they’re
deluded enough to write such lines with a straight face. This might as well
have appeared on The Onion.

> If we want this to succeed we can’t make it network of choice for criminal
> activity of any kind. - David Marcus

 _Good luck with that!_ This point doesn’t gel with the other point he makes
about this being private and that Facebook’s social profiles and the financial
wallets/accounts _will not be_ commingled. I’d wager that the latter promise
would be like WhatsApp saying during its acquisition that nothing would change
and that WhatsApp data will not be used for ads. We know what happened to that
within a few years.

~~~
benmunster1
lol I wrote that subhed — was fully meant to be ironic

------
segmondy
Facebook has so much money that one can't wonder what their angle with this. I
can only imagine they want to know exactly what you spend money on so they can
better target ads.

~~~
roland00
Bingo. It is not exactly better targeting ads. You can sell the same ad (from
the same supplier) to the same customer (the person viewing the ad) and the
supplier will pay more if they are convinced the ad actually has a higher
return rate.

What is the quote again from John Wanamaker "Half the money I spend on
advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half."

Thus knowing more about their users and what they buy and the ad is successful
1 day, 1 month, 1 year in the future allows Facebook to get paid more.

~~~
roland00
Note this is a first order effect, what I explained above.

The 2nd order effect is that by making more money for the same ad, while your
competitors would make less money from the same ad...you can either sit on
that profit.

Or you can use your market share and guaranteed profit to make ads less
profitable to competitors and this creates a positive feedback cycle where
Facebook Ads get more and more market share but other competitors and
platforms of Ads gets less and less, which in turn actually allows Facebook to
charge more per Ad in the long run (but in the short run Facebook may want to
decrease the price per Ad.)

------
alangibson
When I consider that 1) all transactions must pass through validators 2) which
are hand picked 3) by the worlds largest surveillance machine 4) that knows
most everything there is to know about me already, I'm thinking I'll take a
pass on this one.

~~~
aogaili
You'll take a pass but the majority of the people won't so most likely you'll
end up using it.

~~~
alangibson
The average civilian associates cryptocurrencies with high profile thefts and
dark web drug dealers because that's what makes it into the mainstream media.
At best this will panic the big payment processors into making traditional
payment options cheaper and easier, further undermining what little reason
this has for existing.

~~~
aogaili
The average civilian cares and understand nothing of that, all they care about
it is the fastest/simplest/cheapest way to move their money around. Since
WhatsUp and Facebook are ubiquitous by now, and everyone knows how to use
them, so will that currency be.

~~~
alangibson
Existing payment networks already are fast, cheap and I'll also throw in
secure. (In Europe ATMs and bank-to-bank transfers are free.) They could
easily be made simple to use given the requisite will.

~~~
remicmacs
You're correct about payment in the developed world.

But the Libra website highlight potential usage in developing countries. I may
be wrong but in my opinion there is a huge market to take over in the
countries where one has a Facebook account before having a bank account.

I can't find the link but I came across an article explaining that in Myanmar
Facebook and "internet" are basically synonyms. That's because when most of
the population began to have access to the internet it was only via Facebook
services that are provided freely thanks to a commercial agreement between
mobile providers and Facebook.

Now just imagine if Libra could pull something like that for payment services
in _all_ developing countries.

------
sschueller
Libra as in liberty? What a joke.

~~~
JorgeGT
Libra is "pound" in Spanish, so it will be pretty confusing because that's how
we already refer to the pound sterling.

------
VMG
can anyone tell me if people in Iran can use it?

this doesn't really answer my question: [https://libra.org/en-US/security-
privacy/#overview](https://libra.org/en-US/security-privacy/#overview)

> Working with Law Enforcement

> As with any currency or financial infrastructure, bad actors will try to
> exploit the Libra network. While the network is open and accessible to
> everyone with internet access, the network's main endpoints will need to
> follow applicable laws and regulations and collaborate with law enforcement.
> In addition, because transactions on the Libra Blockchain are pseudonymous,
> it is possible for third parties to do analysis to detect fraud and illegal
> activity.

~~~
envy2
There's a difference between Libra (the Swiss-based association) and Calibra
(the US-based FB subsidiary making the first wallet).

> "Calibra will do its part to facilitate the efficacy of international
> sanctions regimes. We will administer and enforce applicable sanctions
> programs including, for example, U.S., EU, and U.N. sanctions programs."

[https://scontent.fbhx3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631...](https://scontent.fbhx3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_355528488499253_8415273665234468864_n.pdf?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent.fbhx3-1.fna&oh=0a4cba967c1bb95cfc88116abd95a193&oe=5D982AC3)

~~~
VMG
So the wallet software will enforce the sanctions?

If somebody writes an open-source wallet they can circumvent the rules?

I don't get it.

------
holler
What do the U.S. and other world governments think of this? The way they're
pitching it seems like they want to directly undermine the global financial
system.

~~~
GrinningFool
Combine something like Libra with things like this[1], and we're well on our
way to the popular science-fiction trope of multinational corporations having
more power than governments.

[1] [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/tech-giant-brings-
soft...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/tech-giant-brings-software-to-
a-gun-fight-salesforce-bars-its-customers-from-selling-firearms/)

------
Yizahi
Step 1 - say that your "coin" is not centralized Step 2 - proceed to
contradict yourself in the next sentence

How the hell is a an obviously centralized system with 3 dozens of privileged
entities is not centralized... Also it is not only oligarchy, but completely
unaccountable shady oligarchy. Why people continue to "want" it is beyond
understanding.

~~~
conanbatt
It's an oligarchy just like the nearest hotdog stand is a dictatorship.

Don't like it don't use it. Try saying the same to the governments come tax-
time.

~~~
camgunz
In the US, we have a democracy, so we have at least some say in how things go:
the government is us. Facebook is not us, we obviously didn't elect Zuck or
anyone else there.

This is a tired, old, fallacious comparison.

~~~
p1esk
If enough people _choose_ to use Libra, it can eventually become a de facto
(or even the only) payment method.

Facebook _is_ us: 2.4B users willingly give Zuck the power to make potentially
high impact decisions like this.

~~~
camgunz
There's a very big difference between:

"I live in and probably even vote in a country that believes I am sovereign,
which thus derives its right to wield authority."

and:

"I signed up for Libra so I could more easily use Facebook, which I only
joined to keep up with my kids, and thus I accept Mark Zuckerberg's authority
over monetary policy, even considering I have no input on it whatsoever"

~~~
p1esk
Do you have a lot of influence over US monetary policy?

I live and vote in US and as soon as the majority of US residents decide to
vote contrary to my wishes I have to accept the authority of whoever they
elect.

Frankly I don’t see much difference.

~~~
camgunz
I have infinitely more control over it compared with anything I might have
with Libra, because that's zero. I can also:

\- run for office

\- build a career in monetary policy

\- join a campaign

\- start a non profit advocacy group

\- lobby my representatives

These only have any effect (if they're even possible otherwise) because we're
a democracy with elections. Can I personally change the supply of USD? No, but
that's because that kind of change affects the entire world, and there should
be a serious process around it. But my point is that there _is_ a process,
rooted in (if imperfectly) the fundamental liberal democratic belief in
humankind's right to self- governance.

Facebook has no such guarantees. It's a serious threat to those principles.
There's a huge difference.

~~~
p1esk
You can just as easily:

1\. Build a competing product (social network, cryptocurrency, etc).

2\. Build a career at FB, to influence from within.

3\. Join/start a campaign against/for Facebook to influence its (potential)
users.

4\. Lobby your representatives to change whatever you don’t like about FB.

Maybe you have a point but so far it’s not very clear :)

~~~
camgunz
Then allow me to be: The US guarantees your right to participate in its
governance and decision making process. Facebook does not. Ceding control over
monetary policy to an organization absent those guarantees is corrosive to our
society, our government, and the fundamental principle of self-governance.

===

Everything on your list is only possible because we live in a free society
with representation and authority over corporations. If we start ceding more
and more core governing functions to corporations, how long do you think it
will be legal to build a competing product? How long do you think you'll be
able to lobby your representatives? How long do you think you'll have the
right to start a PR campaign against Facebook? Look at your favorite
authoritarian regimes for the answers.

~~~
p1esk
With this I agree. Though are we really ceding control over monetary policy to
FB?

~~~
camgunz
Hmm, that's a fair question. The way I see it, monetary policy is essentially
managing the supply of money. The US creates and follows its monetary policy
to manage its currency, the USD. This is effective at doing things like
regulating inflation or easing recessions because we have one currency here:
the USD.

But if Libra starts challenging the USD even just in the US, let alone in the
rest of the world, suddenly there are two dials to turn: one for USD and one
for Libra. As more value is held in Libra rather than USD, US monetary policy
becomes less effective.

And this is just the money supply issue. Others have raised all kinds of
issues about fiduciary duties, privacy, regulation, confiscation, security,
and so on. While I wouldn't at all argue that the US approach to these issues
is perfect (far from it), there are at least some laws and so on. Nothing
would prevent Facebook from freezing your wallet, or freezing your account, or
banning you from their platform, or tracking metadata on your purchases. I
would also assume (perhaps incorrectly?) that law enforcement doesn't have to
jump through the same hoops to get your payment/account information, so
there's potentially more loss of rights there.

This is exactly what Facebook's vision for Libra is: an alternative currency
to the USD shared internationally and controlled by their consortium. They say
it will be pinned to the USD and other stable currencies, but there's nothing
holding them to this (and in fact most cryptocurrencies play with this). I
deeply believe allowing this to happen would be a grave mistake for all of us.

~~~
p1esk
Is your objection primarily to FB controlling the cryptocurrency, or to the
idea of (any) cryptocurrency threatening the USD?

~~~
camgunz
I think when people aren't in control of the currency they use, as in can't
change the supply of it, really bad things happen. Like, many more people
would have died without the QE programs (recessions and depressions kill
people). That's a major goal of CCs, and one of the main reasons I'm against
them.

------
ilaksh
It says testnet only until early 2020. Coincidentally, Ethereum recently
announced Ethereum 2.0 releasing in early 2020.

I consider Libra Coin an effort to cash in on the cryptocurrency hype with a
type of bank, before real cryptocurrencies can scale and become mainstream and
therefore block such an effort.

So I see it as a moral imperative for developers to try to kill the project.
The fact that they are making it open source could help in that regard.

~~~
shrikant
Facebook had already banned advertising other cryptocurrencies in the run-up
to this announcement (well, back in January 2018), so the effort to prevent
other cryptocurrencies from scaling is well underway.

~~~
apexalpha
That's unfair, there was a lot of pressure on companies to protect users from
scammy crypto ads during the big bubble of Bitcoin. I think many companies
banned ads for shady sites and to imply they did it only to promote their own
coin isn't fair.

~~~
shrikant
I totally agree that it was good move from a user perspective. It's just a
happy coincidence. Or perhaps they saw how many outfits (shady or otherwise)
were affected by the ban and decided it represented a good market opportunity
for them to step in and fill a gap?

------
sb636
Can someone help me understand how Libra or other cryptos for that matter can
actually be used? Who will accept the coin as a form of payment? Can these
ever be used to buy essentials (food, clothes, shelter)? It doesn't seem so at
the moment, and until then, I find it hard to imagine businesses or
individuals would be happy to accept Libra as a form of payment.

~~~
abruzzi
Ultimately it depends on how frictionless it is to convert it back to dollars,
pounds, euros, etc. This has always been an issue for bitcoin. When I first
heard about bitcoin, one bitcoin was worth less than a US dollar. I was
curious so I tried to buy $50 worth, but the process was so convoluted and
difficult I didn't bother. Today its much easier, but not completely so. But
much of the difficulty then, and I presume now, was the distrust of banks. The
key vendor on their list of supporters is PayPal (IMO). Paypal is in a
position to make currency conversion painless for most users. Maybe in the
future there will be enough places that accept this new currency that people
can keep their money in that form but initially its all about easy conversion.

------
luckycharms810
I haven’t really seen a lot about how exactly the Facebook profiles will be
separated from the pseudonyms on the libra network. I think this is also part
of a gamble that people don’t really care that much about privacy in most of
their purchases. If you look at a network like Venmo, they have a social
aspect that is on by default, a news feed of sorts. With small incentives (
discounts, credits - share this transaction and receive a discount on your
next purchase ) - people could easily give up their anonymity on the network.
Once this happens Facebook will be sitting on the holy grail of advertising. A
full closed loop of people’s interactions with advertising and the impact it
has on their purchasing habits. It creates a new avenue for monetization for
Facebook when ads are shown on publisher websites as well. Displaying ads and
the analytics around engagement only create half the picture, the other half
will be the impact it has on how they spend their money.

------
tim333
From the technical paper it seems to be able to be transferred anonymously
like bitcoin etc

>To create a new account, a user first generates a fresh
verification/signature key-pair

>The Libra protocol does not link accounts to a real-world identity. A user is
free to create multiple accounts by generating multiple key-pairs. Accounts
controlled by the same user have no inherent link to each other. This scheme
follows the example of Bitcoin and Ethereum in that it provides pseudonymity
for users. [https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-
bl...](https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-
blockchain.pdf)

I'm wondering if this may create legal problems for Facebook and its partners
when the currency gets used for illegal stuff. Bitcoin doesn't get sued when
it's used for drug dealing because there is no one to sue.

~~~
helen___keller
I think the trick here is that Facebook is not inherently in charge of
transactions, each validator is. Meaning, each validator will have their own
efforts to make sure nobody pushing transactions on their node is doing crime
(and/or that their identity is known so it can be forwarded to police when
linked with crime).

In practice what this _probably_ means is that each validator will require a
lot of personal information tied to each public key before accepting
transactions from that public key. In other words, I would wait until/if
someone trustworthy partners as a Libra node (e.g. my bank who already knows
my financial history) until I sign up to give it a shot.

------
clearfund
What this truly mimics is a 'security' analogous to a basket of foreign
currency traded as an ETF. Once you give them US $1 it is backed by a POOL of
currency from multiple countries (i.e. the other people who have traded their
currency for Libra).

Once you decide to take your US $1 you will get back a different amount based
on the underlying value of the pool based on the fluctuating FX market. May be
>=<...no one will know.

Given they are seeking to bring in "underbanked" people (i.e. the charitable
patina on this operation) there will be a focused % of currency in the pool
from countries with a high % of underbanked people. Logic says this will
likely be less stable currency than say the US $, etc.

Thus, your US $ will be diluted by "lesser" or more "volatile" currencies and
will diminish the purchase power of your US $1. Conversely it will increase
the purchase power of the lesser currency.

Thoughts?

~~~
kodz4
Far far away from that point. Maybe when people start buying houses and paying
their medical bills with it. Which is not going to happen if the Big Banks
have anything to say about it. This is mostly going to be small change
transactions for a couple years with lots of other players falling over each
other with alternatives. As long as it makes global small change transactions
free or dirt cheap should be a good thing.

------
no1youknowz
I'm not holding any coins. But I have an interest in crypto currencies for
some projects I'm developing.

Anyone who thinks this is going to replace ripple, I have some bad news for
you.

Ripples main focus is not for users purchasing goods across websites. Its
focus is mainly for banks (to hold vast amounts of XRP) when sending sums of
money to each other, to be able to convert fiat into XRP and then send that
XRP between them and then convert XRP into the receiving fiat currency.

The remittence market is huge and that's where ripple is mainly interested.
Both banks and businesses are using it because there is a high trust factor
with Ripple.

Now of course Facebook is trying to supplant ripple here, as a user won't need
to go to a bank or remittence provider which would use either SWIFT or XRP to
send the funds. Instead facebook is hoping to tap into the network effect it
has built and two users can send monies between each other using this new
token.

Another thing that I have an issue with. The article mentions eliminating
"rent seeking". How so? Paypal, Visa, Mastercard all charge a % when
processing a transaction. The $10m buying fee needs to be recuperated. Are
transactions going to be free? Perhaps... Is running the nodes and network
going to be free? It's certainly not.

There is going to be a fee for sending currency across the network. Either an
up-front transaction fee or a conversion to FIAT fee. But there will be a fee.

If the same old players are involved, you can bet they want to get paid and
the same old players will want to eventually impose their own rules to the
game.

Personally, I don't think this will usurp Bitcoin. If anything else, I think
it will make people more comfortable with digital currencies and then we'll
have more leaps in better tech and the free market will bear fruit of a much
lower priced solution than libra coin.

~~~
ymolodtsov
"Its focus is mainly for banks (to hold vast amounts of XRP) when sending sums
of money to each other, to be able to convert fiat into XRP and then send that
XRP between them and then convert XRP into the receiving fiat currency.” With
the exception of Ripple money transfer products working without XRP, which
they don’t like to shout about.

------
m3kw9
Looking at this as a black box, you buy credits using real money, and you can
transfer the credits with less fees than tradition banks. Except you have one
extra step on conversion of money into credits.

If there are enough people and places that accepts this credit, you eventually
don’t need to ever convert it back to real money. Therefore when there is a
lowered chance people would do a bank run, they can lower the backing
requirement, like how banks are, and can reinvest the money. Here is the main
point, they probably won’t dare issuing coins ie print money as that would
immediately could be deemed a national security issue as now you are competing
against a nations money supply.

You gonna say, wait, this is how bitcoins work, but nobody is giving bitcoin
any respect. This libra thing will get respect, so regulation may just stop it
in its tracks as soon as it gets too far.

~~~
m3kw9
So this thing is probably not going anywhere fast, in order to be useful, it
needs to go beyond America. Every country will be scare of this possibility
becoming a currency they have no control over. I’m not even sure if America
will allow this to even take off without severe regulations that crippled the
development

------
cfarm
Currency is about trust. Do you trust these companies? Idk if you've been
living under a rock, but a bunch of them are getting slammed for privacy and
security breaches.

------
otoburb
Re-phrasing and summarizing:

"Hey look - Tether demonstrated that a successful stablecoin _can_ be a
profitable business model. We can accelerate adoption of our own stablecoin
based on our addictive social media experience and social graph and rake in
the interest off our float reserves.

So long and thanks for all the fish!"

------
la_barba
I think this is an interesting move from FB. Google has been trying to get
payments data by extracting it out of your emails and any other data that
resides on their servers. I don't know if they've been correlating it with
search/dns/ad data, but I suspect they sneakily have been. By getting all the
major payment processors on board for the operations/logistics, and with FB
providing the tech, they can all share the data between them and FB probably
thinks they can profit the most out of this. Apple's pro-privacy payment
system is unlikely to take off (IMHO) given that it doesn't align with the
profit motives of the payment companies. The only way it can take off is from
the bottom-up if people choose to use it in droves.

~~~
JaRail
Of course Google uses it to drive their own ad engagement. Say you want to
look up your flight info. Instead of going back to the original email, you
have all the info in the assistant. Instead of seeing rental car ads from the
airline, you get them through Google.. You get to check out attractions in the
city you're visiting through Maps.. it's obviously not all 1:1. Google isn't
so pushy with their ads. They like to be subtle. But yea, they clearly get to
serve more interesting ads by hijacking these workflows.

Slightly less obvious what they do Amazon toilet-paper receipts. Often things
can just be aggregated into really good business intelligence. They could data
mine what shows netflix is recommending, etc. I'm honestly not sure what kind
of protections they offer in terms of extracting aggregate data from email.
It's creepy so they'd keep it mostly internal.. but I'm sure they would have
found some really interesting ways to use it.

------
dotancohen
I already find it hard enough to use certain services without having a
facebook account. E.g. Tinder requires one, and even having a throwaway is
problematic because people want to check your Facebook profile before meeting.

However, having currency wrapped up in Facebook will mean that now I will not
be able to participate is some economies. I work remotely and as much as
Paypal is a villian, it is also a saviour for paying people halfway across the
globe. If Facebook displaces that, then my own business is in trouble. And
there is no real way to separate Facebook the spying entity from Facebook the
social entity, therefore I expect there to be no way to separate the Facebook
financial services entity either.

This is a big worry.

------
tsrautde007
Why Facebook’s Libra could be a runaway success

[https://medium.com/@tejas_rd/why-facebooks-libra-could-
be-a-...](https://medium.com/@tejas_rd/why-facebooks-libra-could-be-a-runaway-
success-a7cd268f2485)

~~~
floatrock
The last two points apply to any crypto, but the first two, Scale and Network,
are plausible.

Basically the tl;dr is facebook and the other "tech titan" validator nodes
provide a large, existing distribution channel, and presumably they can
unleash their armies of developers to make all the techie crypto stuff Just
Work.

A long running bitcoin criticism has been that it's been like PGP -- built on
sound principles, but the usability has just been too hard. Coinbase took off
because it made crypto easy to the average joe... HN people understand you
should never leave your bitcoin on a centralized exchange, but the average
user has difficulty understanding the idea of keys, wallets, dongles, etc.

If Libra's going to succeed, it's going to be because they're going to do what
Apple did to Unix: take the good parts, leave them available to the
powerusers, and wrap the rest with really friendly usability.

And they've already done something like this: one of the advantages of React
has been the developer tooling. There's always going to be a subset of users
that prefers to string a bunch of tools together themselves, but with a
corporate backer, you can invest in solid developer experience.

~~~
tsrautde007
Last two points are predicated on fulfillment of the first two.

Network first and technology later vs. most of the industry's 'build first and
get the stakeholders later' approach could be the sole differentiation in this
thing flying off

------
tgb29
It's very possible this initiative will be low impact. Most people don't care
about currency -- they just want to spend their money in the terms they're
used to.

My one concern: if the libra's value is based on a basket of assets, will US
users still see the value in terms of USD? Will French users see their value
in Euro? Will the value of my USD change based on the basket of securities
backing libra?

I just want an easy solution to send money cross borders. Someone in Mexico
right now owes me $80 and there's no easy way to do this. If she could send it
to me through WhatsApp with a near zero fee I'd see the value in libra.

~~~
helen___keller
>My one concern: if the libra's value is based on a basket of assets, will US
users still see the value in terms of USD? Will French users see their value
in Euro? Will the value of my USD change based on the basket of securities
backing libra?

I don't know what the UI will be like, but I guarantee that there will be an
exchange rate of USD to Libra and it will shift as USD's value shifts against
other currencies in the basket.

------
yertletheturtle
Maybe I'm an idiot and don't understand the marketing lingo but what exactly
is the use-case for this? Why among all of the tech companies is Facebook the
one to create a crypto currency?

What do they plan on doing with this?

~~~
jmull
I think the idea is you're going to be able to "Message" other people "money",
Straight from the Facebook app/website. It also should work seamlessly across
the various other social networks that are partnering in this.

There are other ways to do this now, but if they are able to do it right, this
would generally be more convenient and widely available. I would assume fees
will be low to start with. (Note that Visa and Mastercard are partners, so you
can safely bet the fees will go up quite a bit once this catches on.)

------
supermatt
So facebook (and partners) can mint their own money. Are we supposed to be OK
with that? Wasn't this issue one of the primary reasons for crypto currency
existing in the first place.

This shouldn't be allowed to exist.

~~~
wuliwong
In the US, cryptocurrencies are treated as assets, they are taxed every time
you exchange them for something or even each other. I would disagree that
libra coin is akin to Facebook and partners creating their own money.

~~~
supermatt
Clearly you didnt read the whitepaper. Facebook (and partners) literally mint
libra. You give them a dollar, they mint a dollars worth of libra and stick
the dollar in their "reserve". What stops them minting more libra than they
actually hold fiat reserves for?

~~~
chillacy
Not a new problem, it applies to bank notes and other stable coins as well
right?

~~~
supermatt
So we replace one broken system with another. This wasn't the cryptocurrency
promise.

------
shyneeup
I'm still trying to understand....whats the point of using blockchain here at
all if you're going to just make it centralized by validating only through an
admitted pool of validators?

------
gormo2
Can someone use this if they espouse "white nationalist"-adjacent beliefs
(such as building a border wall and deporting illegal immigrants)? What does
it mean if they can or cannot?

~~~
igravious
So first off Facebook would have to transgress the barrier in place that they
say they're erecting between the user's Calibra account and the user's FB or
WhatsApp or Insta account – simultaneously Facebook would have to tag its
users as holding sets of beliefs that were antithetical to some set of ideal
beliefs that would be encoded digitally somewhere inside Facebook's
algorithms. To do this without human intervention would be a supreme AI task,
to do it without human arbitration would be to blindly trust an algorithm, to
do it at all would be an act of tyrannical censorship.

We here at Facebook hope that answers your question.

------
imw
"He added that users would be able to remain anonymous or pseudonymous, at
their own discretion—including the ability to keep their digital wallets
separate from their Facebook profiles."

Imperial march plays in background, dark patterns flood through every
interface.

"Indeed, that’s why Calibra, the wallet software that will hold Libra Coins,
was made a subsidiary of Facebook—“to ensure appropriate separation between
social and financial data and to build and operate services on its behalf on
top of the Libra network,” as the white paper explains."

Is this some cruel joke? 'See! We made it a subsidiary! Can't get more arms
length than that!' Being a subsidiary generally means that Calibra will take
and toe the dictates of Facebook. There is no separation here.

It honestly feels like this is a last chance to pull away from the
enlightenment value killing death spiral that is surveillance capitalism.

------
tjpnz
How does Facebook intend to support anonymous transactions without running
afoul of Anti Money Laundering laws? If Facebook were to implement Libra in
marketplace (for example) they would be obliged to do KYC on their sellers in
some jurisdictions. That potentially means they would be handling identity
documents and would be required to ban anyone (from all of their services)
found to be involved in a criminal enterprise.

------
coinanalyst
A key factor to consider: Libra has intrinsic value but Bitcoin doesn't.

From libra.org: "Libra is fully backed by a reserve of real assets. A basket
of currencies and assets will be held in the Libra Reserve for every Libra
that is created, building trust in its intrinsic value."

Fixed supply is a fatal design flaw of Bitcoin which leads to it not likely
having any intrinsic value ever. Let me explain:

1\. Fiat money's intrinsic value: A homeowner who borrows against their home
is guaranteed to get full control of the home when they deliver the amount
they owe, which is denominated in fiat. It is a powerful incentive to exchange
goods and services for fiat. Even for participants who don't owe fiat, knowing
that the fiat is intrinsically valuable to debtors means that it can be used
to purchase goods and services from them.

2\. There is no such incentive behind Bitcoin. Negligible amount of debt is
denominated in Bitcoin. If Bitcoin value falls towards zero, there’s no real-
economy backed mechanism to bring it back. There is no contractual guarantee
that spending X amount of Bitcoins can entitle the purchaser to receive Y
amount of services.

3\. Bitcoin will likely never be a debt instrument. Bitcoin has a fixed
supply, and the design goal of this is for Bitcoin to be deflationary. If
there’s an equilibrium interest rate in Bitcoin, that rate is highly likely to
be negative and more than the cost of owning Bitcoin. This removes incentives
for Bitcoin holders to lend out the currency, consequently there will be no
debt, and no contract that allows debtors to receive real goods by delivering
Bitcoins.

This argument applies to most non-stable cryptocurrencies. From this reasoning
alone, I see Libra has a much higher chance to succeed than its crypto peers.

~~~
chii
Not being able to generate debt denominated in Bitcoins is a design goal, and
I feel, possibly a good one (if too idealistic).

Fractional reserve banking lends too much power in to the hands of those who
control the process. Fractional reserve is impossible in Bitcoins (unless you
trust the word of the other party). This doesn't mean loans or debt can't
exist, but it is not denominated in Bitcoins, but just as records on paper.
And you also cannot loan out Bitcoins you don't own (nor loan out nonexistent
Bitcoins like you could with fiat). This leads to more responsible lending,
and cuts speculative gambling with assets. I think in the long run, this is a
good thing (even though it would hurt in the short term).

------
shiado
So if cryptocurrency is taxed on capital gains, and this is a stablecoin, can
they buy their own currency in whatever tax haven they are storing money in
now with money they want to repatriate to the USA, then sell the coin in the
USA and pay no taxes because it is a stablecoin to they didn't actually have
any gains? And they do all this while controlling the cryptocurrency itself?

~~~
theodorton
They wouldn't need to pay taxes because the money to purchase the financial
instrument (whether it's a stock or a cryptocurrency) should already have been
taxed in the country where the buyer resides. And, at least in my country, you
can't use a financial trade like that to get a tax deduction.

How would they afford to buy the cryptocurrency from the shell company in the
first place?

------
DiseasedBadger
I'm not surprised to see MasterCard diving this dumpster fire, but, Visa?
Visa: what are you doing?

Save yourself, Visa! Don't do this!

~~~
coolspot
It's just a hedge, bro! Visa is not obligated to integrate Libra anywhere.
They just put a foot in the opening just in case it will take off. If it
doesn't they lose nothing ($10M), if it takes off they are having saying in
where it goes.

------
hesk
So, the Guardian article says that it uses blockchain but is invite-only at
the moment. But if it's not public, why do you need blockchain? So is it
blockchain as in Bitcoin (i.e., proof of work) or "blockchain" as in hype? I
hope it's not the former because proof of work wastes so much energy it's not
even funny.

------
feydaykyn
This is the start of a very good podcast, the Program
[http://www.programaudioseries.com/](http://www.programaudioseries.com/)

Each episode is a character explaining how the Program changed his/her life,
episodes are very moving. The first one describes how it all started by a
social network controlling money and thus people actions. Oh and it's mainly
optimistic, that's a nice change for the subject!

"The Program is a historical podcast, but a one that’s set in the future and
examines the present day. The world of the future is exactly like ours, except
that Money, State, and God became fused into a single entity called the
Program. This hardcore sci-fi premise however is just the backdrop, and the
series focuses on stories of ordinary people inhabiting this extraordinary
world."

------
rogerkirkness
It seems like Facebook is simply following through on the Web 1.0 vision that
Thiel and Musk chased. The first Facebook product I might use in a long time.
This seems inevitable on reflection. Skepticism is valid, at the same time
consider carefully if this is worse than The Fed.

~~~
thefounder
>> Skepticism is valid, at the same time consider carefully if this is worse
than The Fed.

Are you serious? Are you comparing facebook credits 2.0 with The Fed?

------
seibelj
I will answer the question that is always asked in every post regarding
blockchains on HN:

 _" Why blockchain? Can't this be done with a database?"_

Blockchains _are_ databases. They are distributed, append-only, tamper-proof
databases. You could call them that, or instead you could just say
"blockchain" as that is what type of database the word blockchain has come to
be understood as.

The reason to use a blockchain rather than a centralized database is because
the properties described - distributed and tamper-proof - are crucial to the
application. In Libra's case, centralized entities that control financial
services (banks) have high fees, are slow, and are not trusted in some
respects (financial bailout) while being highly trusted in others (not waking
up and losing your money). A blockchain can provide solutions to the problems
of centralized financial entities with the benefits of distributed ones.

~~~
alangibson
Libra is explicitly centralized. The protocol depends entirely on Validators,
of which there are few, and the Libra Association controls who's a Validator.

If Libra is decentralized, then so is the Fed because it's distributed across
12 regional banks.

------
samcday
So Facebook is under an increasing amount of scrutiny and calls for regulatory
pressure. Amidst all that, they're still brave/arrogant/oblivious enough to
launch something like this.

People are going to read history books about this era and shake their heads in
pure disbelief.

------
MarkMc
Currently most online payments involve a 2% credit card fee. Will Libra lead
to a significant reduction in this cost? If Libra can be 0.5% cheaper than
credit card payments for consumers then it will become the dominant form of
online payment.

------
gtirloni
It's very nice they chose Rust for such a critical component of their
infrastructure.

------
dharma1
Always wondered why Apple hasn't opened up iMessage to every platform (not
just Apple devices) and gone properly into Alipay territory with payments.
They don't have much growth left in hardware, seems like the obvious thing to
do

------
eudora
Moving in the direction of an everything app, like WeChat?

I was horrified at this news at first, but WeChat isn't too terrifying, and
they're far more ubiquitous.

I just hope the social network aspect of Facebook (and Instagram) continues to
shrivel.

~~~
SomeOldThrow
> WeChat isn't too terrifying

Finding out people use a proprietary chat app as a primary payment mechanism
is indeed terrifying. Now on to a proprietary currency!

------
HashThis
There is a video is about French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire fighting the
Facebook Libra

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH4oVeME_dk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH4oVeME_dk)

------
kemonocode
I hope this gets anywhere, not because I'm particularly enamored with Facebook
(In fact, I hate them and their skeevy practices) but because I want PayPal to
feel the squeeze. I just happen to hate PayPal a little bit more than Facebook
and any competition in that department is good in my opinion.

I don't see Libra being remotely any competition against Bitcoin, but as an
alternative to current centralized payment processors? Sure, and it wouldn't
be a huge stretch considering the amount of sensitive information people
already entrusts (with or without merit) with Facebook.

~~~
pwodhouse
PayPal is part of the Facebook Coin consortium.

------
H8crilA
This could pan out. There's a ton of people in the developing world that can
only use their phones to get access to any reasonable banking. Or things like
ROSCAs [1].

Don't think that tech (whether its a permissionless PoS blockchain or a Ripple
copy) is important for success here. Only whether or not an aggressive
marketing campaign to make people use it (especially merchants) will succeed.

1:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_savings_and_credit_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_savings_and_credit_association)

------
ur-whale
One really interesting issue is _how_ they are actually going to make the
zucbux actually stable.

This seems like a straightforward problem to solve: for every zucbux in
circulation, stash a euro, a yen and a USD somewhere.

Except ... where do you actually stash those? In what financial institution?
And how do you know said custodian is risk-free? Who is going to audit them to
independently guarantee that the underlying funds actually exist?

As it turns out, the only entities that can somewhat securely provide that
service are central banks themselves, and that means they have to be willing
to play ball.

------
mmaunder
This provides the potential for FB to pivot into banking.

The article points out that the structure of Libra doesn't require a
connection between FB profile and wallet. But let's face it. If FB are the
inventor and are the benevolent dictator in this open system, it positions
them to offer all their users wallets and be the bank that facilitates most
transactions.

The revenue potential for FB in that scenario, from transaction fees to
deposits (borrowing short and lending long) to wealth management is limitless.

There is an endgame here that has 2 billion customers and is worth trillions.

------
iagooar
I was going to make a snarky, sarcastic comment about this by writing: "yeah,
what could possibly go wrong?".

Now that I think about it, it's a genuinely interesting question: what could
possibly go wrong?

~~~
tVoss42
If a Silicon Valley controlled currency becomes the preferred method of
payment, then the companies controlling it get unchecked power over the
economy.

Banned from Facebook? You need to find other ways to reach your audience and
make money. Banned from Libra? Now you need to find another way to spend your
money in a market that preferes Libra.

That's one possible bad ending, but maybe I'm a bit paranoid. Still, you'll
also have to consider the dozens privacy issues that will pop up in the
meantime, especially given Facebook doesn't currently have the best track
record.

------
HipGeeks
This is going to leave Ripple a dead duck.

~~~
manojlds
And Stellar, Nano and many others.

~~~
dfischer
Interesting because Stripe CEO is behind XLM too, no?

~~~
freshfey
Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe is an advisor to Stellar

------
ur-whale
As is plenty evident with existing cryptos, the network effect is a huge part
of a cryptocurrency's success (technically speaking, bitcoin is far from the
best crypto out there, but it's the most popular because it was first and is
nowadays the most well known).

Facebook's huge existing network will be a massive boon for Libra, however
well designed it actually is from a technical standpoint: FB has direct reach
into billions of people's daily life.

Good or bad, it will become a strong contender in the crypto space, unless
regulators get in the way.

------
leifg
I'm not quite sure which kind of problem they are trying to solve.

Are they just another payment provider that has "crypto" in the name? Having a
shiny app? I don't see that as great selling point.

The problems for consumers with current payment providers and banks are
largely due to regulatory and policy decisions (PayPal not accepting retailers
for certain services, banks making it extremely complicated for you to get a
bank account etc...).

Libra will have all of these issues.

So I'm genuinely curious: What problem does Libra solve?

------
muckrakerz
Why in God's name if we can't trust FB with privacy of our kids photos should
we trust them to handle our finances? This deserves all of the mockery that it
will receive.

~~~
taurath
I'd love to see what the actual incentive structure is here. What are they
hoping to get out of the investment? Data? Fraud prevention fees?

------
deafcalculus
How does Libra work? It sounds more like a traditional currency, except it
isn't issued by a nation, but by a bunch of companies. The peg to a basket of
currencies suggests that it'll operate like a currency board regime. Do they
completely give up monetary independence by backing every Libra with a dollar
in reserve (or a basket of currencies)? Or is the plan to make Libra
eventually float and have some decentralised mechanism to set interest rates?

~~~
deafcalculus
The TC article says that every Libra issued is backed by USD and other
currencies in reserve. So, no independent monetary policy. This looks a whole
lot more like full-reserve banking than a cryptocurrency. Are they calling it
a cryptocurrency to avoid KYC requirements and other banking regulations?

------
CloudNetworking
Great name that's not going to create any confusion in those Spanish speaking
countries that call the Pound "Libra" (hence the £ as the sign, by the way).

------
the_duke
> Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party.
> Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them
> PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay ....

This really surprises me, since it is somewhat of a direct attack on Visa,
Mastercard and Paypal. Maybe the thinking is that if Libra becomes a success,
they'd rather be in on the deal, or they plan on becoming middleman and
integrate it into their services.

~~~
snarf21
They joined because it allows them increased market share. This play is mostly
about cross border remittance and the unbanked. This gives all these companies
a percentage of all the money that gets moved in this way. They have almost no
exposure to those customers today. And all they have to do is run some
software on some servers and invest $10M. Seems like nothing but upside to me.

------
bupkus
Facebook is creating a securitized token representing a supply of Us
treasuries and other assets that according to the white paper is to provide
intrinsic value.They do not seem to understand what gives Cypto intrinsic
value. In theory this is a security and should only be available only to
accredited investors and they would need to file for an IPO to make it
available to everyone in the US. There is no innovation just another tether.

------
kaushikb9
India is one of Facebook's biggest market. I am interested to understand how
will they compete against India's own open wallet platform, UPI, which is
already very popular and already surpassed overall Credit card transactions in
the country. Wallet companies like PayTM, PhonePe, Google Pay have a strong
presence throughout the country and are dealing directly with fiat currency

------
kebman
Looks like this is yet another centrally controllable currency to woo the
masses away from Bitcoin, not unlike Ripple's XRP. Or am I mistaken? It's
probably a great vessel for speculation, though, since Facebook is a serious
company, and because it will obviously be polished and work well. As a vessel
for storing and moving value, however, I think I'll stick to BTC.

------
jonas_kgomo
Zittrain and Zuckerberg discussed encryption, ‘information fiduciaries’,
interesting part is that Mark didn't mention nor support cryptocurrencies but
he argued that the blockchain would incredibly help with security on Facebook.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGchhsKhG-A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGchhsKhG-A)

------
Jeff_Brown
Have they solved the scale-vs-security problem? Bitcoin scales badly for the
very reason that it is secure -- every miner keeps a copy of the currency's
entire transaction history (the blockchain), and wastes a ton of cpu cycles on
proof-of-work, racing with others to verify the next block.

Has Facebook reduced the number of players involved in mining? Are they using
some other proof system?

~~~
percentcer
[https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-
consen...](https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-consensus-
state-machine-replication-in-the-libra-blockchain.pdf)

This is the actual tech paper, it uses proof of stake (not proof of work per
your concern)

------
chr1xzy
Jameson Lopp thoughts on Libra “Blockchain”

[https://medium.com/@lopp/thoughts-on-libra-
blockchain-49b8f6...](https://medium.com/@lopp/thoughts-on-libra-
blockchain-49b8f6c26372)

Covers:

Abstract

Introduction

Logical Data Model

Executing Transactions

Authenticated Data Structures and Storage

Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus

Networking

Libra Core Implementation

Performance

Implementing Libra Ecosystem Policies with Move

Governance,AML/KYC,fees,capacity,open to developers?

------
nickpsecurity
For anyone interested, here's the protocol paper:

[https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-
consen...](https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-consensus-
state-machine-replication-in-the-libra-blockchain.pdf)

------
fauigerzigerk
I wonder how they plan to keep the price of the Libra stable.

I understand that by keeping fiat currency reserves, they can guarantee a
minimum exchange rate below which the Libra can never fall.

But how can they stop the Libra from rising? And once it has risen, how can
they stop it from crashing back down to the guaranteed exchange rate?

~~~
cesarb
> I understand that by keeping fiat currency reserves, they can guarantee a
> minimum exchange rate below which the Libra can never fall.

The way this works is that it's a guaranteed arbitrage opportunity: if the
price of Libra somewhere falls below USD 1, you can buy Libra at that cheaper
price, exchange it at Facebook for USD (at the fixed USD 1 price), sell the
USD, and pocket the difference.

> But how can they stop the Libra from rising?

The way this works is the same thing in the opposite direction: if the price
of Libra somewhere rises above USD 1, you can buy USD, exchange it at Facebook
for Libra (at the fixed USD 1 price), sell the Libra at the higher price, and
pocket the difference.

------
devnullbyte
I hope it crashes and burns. It's the opposite of what crypto was meant to
achieve. No central control.

~~~
ymolodtsov
Build something better that will get more adoption then?

~~~
Loughla
I'm trying to understand how your statement isn't just a flippant nonsense
remark.

How can I, me, one person, make something that is 'better' (how do you even
define that) and will get more adoption than something that is being rolled
out by one of the largest and already most popular platforms?

What a ridiculous statement you've made. Just a useless statement to make
yourself feel superior, is what it looks like.

~~~
matz1
Isn't most of the thing if not anything start from one person, even Facebook
itself ? Are you implying that its hard ? hard != impossible.

~~~
eswat
Platforms started by many people—thousands in this case—have way more leverage
than a single person trying to do the same.

It may not be impossible, but in this case it should be sane to assume it
would be a waste of energy for a single person to attempt it.

~~~
matz1
Fb didn't start with thousand people, it start with zuck coding up (or maybe
stole it) prototype in his bedroom

~~~
eswat
Should clarify: by this case I mean Libra, not Facebook.

~~~
matz1
Sure, doesn't change the fact that libra started by facebook and facebook
started by one person, zuck.

~~~
eswat
I didn’t have Facebook,the social network way back, in my mind when trying to
make my argument (I definitely should have made this clearer).

Remove the history behind Facebook and just look at the numbers of the
LibraCoin consortium and you’re not dealing with just one person. That’s the
lens someone wanting to make a competitor should be looking through, not that
LibraCoin has a long thread tying back to “just” Zuck. That catalyst has
little to do with the challenge of competing with LibraCoin as it has started
today.

~~~
matz1
I'm arguing against original argument that one person can't do anything
against something big.

Any changes start from one person trying to do so. I'm arguing that’s the lens
you should have in mind.

------
canada_dry
This and the other recent article about how (in China) it's becoming more and
more difficult to do/buy things without wechat makes me think that just as
VPN's are popular today, some form of anonymous (non-tracking) e-currency will
be all the rage in the future.

------
msiyer
Why do we need to expend our energies to debate? Facebook cannot be trusted.
Facebook should not be allowed anywhere near our finances. This is a nightmare
in the making. Gullible public will start using it in the name of convenience
and it might suddenly become ubiquitous.

------
stubbornleaf
It's supposed to be used by people who cannot access financial service. But
they still have to buy Libra with their current currencies, and then Facebook
becomes that financial service. So Facebook can reach to where those other
financial services cannot reach?

------
alex_young
Why is this considered a threat to banks or credit card companies? Don't you
still have to convert to your local currency at some point?

I think that's why you see credit card companies on this thing. Best case
seems that it increases their transaction from what I see.

------
postcynical
How are blockchain/cryptocurrencies affected by a possible breakthrough in
quantum computing? It is my understanding that quantum computing makes it
trivial to break todays crypto. So a single actor with a quantum computer
could break any crypto currency?

------
haunter
So they want an Alipay competitor for the west? Tho I see Alipay outside of
China more and more

------
losvedir
I don't get why it has to be a "cryptocurrency". I see the value in some sort
of token that you buy and can then exchange without fees, but couldn't that
just be a simple DB? What does it being a cryptocurrency on a blockchain get
you?

~~~
2a96eb7d685a49c
Multiple validators with byzantine fault tolerance.

~~~
Jeff_Brown
Multiple, but not necessarily very many -- the validators are an exclusive
club.

------
skeptical-cat
Lots of people here saying this won't be adopted... I think we're all
underestimating how many people are on FB. Ad targeting is very sophisticated
for FB platforms, I think a "buy with Libra" button would get clicked a lot.

Which is frightening.

------
GershwinA
These are the guys that can't properly secure their main product. Facebook has
been leaking all around, I think Instagram stored passwords in plain text, and
last year their cookies were stolen too. Ain't touching this for some time.

------
stef25
So the logic is that people in Africa have smartphones but no bank accounts.
Wherever they buy their phone credits (cash for a voucher in a corner shop),
they could also buy Libra top-up vouchers? It must involve a cash transaction
after all.

------
mangecoeur
What could possibly go wrong -_-

------
saltsaltsalts
FB Crypto = big bank crypto. This helps push the blockchain into the hands of
millions but the millions won't care. Just another Chase, BofA, Santander....
Sounds interesting and new so people should flock to it....

------
thrower123
I'm already at the point where I refuse to donate to charity events that
friends and relative link me to through Facebook. I don't trust Facebook to
have access to my money, in any way, shape or form.

------
eacfox
I bought in [https://webpromocoes.com.br/codigo-
promocional/](https://webpromocoes.com.br/codigo-promocional/) very
interesting in Brazil

------
mehdix
I'd guess FB is also targeting micropayments. They are already ubiquitous on
many websites so why not let their users pay for content with fbcoins?

It's 2019 and micropayment is still an unsolved problem.

------
bwilli123
[https://ftalphaville.ft.com/series/Breaking%20the%20Zuck%20B...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/series/Breaking%20the%20Zuck%20Buck)

------
lanrh1836
Who is in charge of stopping this from being used for money laundering?

------
opticbit
> "Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial
> infrastructure that empowers billions of people."

Command line demo/testnet. yea everyone can use it /s

------
fnord77
Expansion and contraction of the monetary supply by central banks is critical
to preventing financial disasters. Cryto subverts this.

Not to mention making transactions harder and not easier.

~~~
rphlx
In the US the evidence for a central bank PhD Politburo "preventing" or even
"minimizing" financial disasters is dubious at best. Financial panics in the
19th century were generally shorter, less frequent, and probably effected the
avg citizen much less, than 1929/1937/1970s/2000/2008.

------
ur-whale
Can't resist, I just have to post this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbDFmHqEIw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbDFmHqEIw)

------
scotu
Just wanted to say that the logo is not Libra's symbol; it's very similar to
Aquarius though. While I maintain my horoscope-hater attitude, I am still
disappointed

------
Philip_Woodman
Facebook unveiled an ambitious plan on Tuesday to create an alternative
financial system that relies on a cryptocurrency that the company has been
secretly working on for more than a year.

The effort, announced with 27 partners as diverse as Mastercard and Uber,
could face immediate skepticism from people who question the usefulness of
cryptocurrencies and others who are wary of the power already accumulated by
the social media company.

The cryptocurrency, called Libra, will also have to overcome concern that
Facebook does not effectively protect the private information of its users — a
fundamental task for a bank or anyone handling financial transactions.

------
dgellow
Duplicate, see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210667)

------
kubindurion
"Blockchain vs BULLSHIT" criteria:

Is it: \- Open \- Publicly verifiable \- Neutral \- Borderless \- Censorship-
Resistant. \- Immutable \- Permissionless

In case of Libra answer to all is _No_

------
tyingq
Interesting name choice, as you might mistake it for something freedom
related. But the etymology of "libra" doesn't have that connotation.

------
sbmthakur
Crypto-currencies are likely to be banned in India or at least not officially
supported by the Federal Bank. Will this also be treated in the same manner?

------
dev_north_east
I can't wait to get me some Itchy and Scratchy Money

------
uylbh
Can I use it in Iran?

~~~
ur-whale
You can use Bitcoin in Iran today, can't you?

------
ryanmarsh
This just occurred to me, did someone at the OCC give Facebook a bank charter?
So they have a Fed account and can issue fractional reserve loans?

------
obiefernandez
I just had to pay my one of my staff members in Mexico a severance of
approximately 50,000 pesos. She doesn't have documentation or a bank account,
so I had to pay her out in cash. 1000 peso notes are not widely used, so I had
to get 500 notes out of the bank. That's about 100 bills--pretty bulky. She's
going to have to spend a few hours getting home on 3 different buses with that
huge wad of cash somewhere on her person, and risk being robbed.

Having some sort of electronic payment system that worked for her would be
amazing.

------
MarkMc
Would there be anything stopping Google making this offer to users? "Tell us
your Libra wallet ID to get YouTube premium for free!"

------
jbb123
I can imagine few things i'm less likely to want than a currency in any way
connected to facebook.

~~~
onetimemanytime
That's one vote against. Reality is that "everyone" uses FB /Whatsapp and
sending money via FB that everyone uses makes plenty of sense.

See China or plenty of other countries where people send money to each other
via mobile.

~~~
tudorizer
Is everyone really using FB/Whatsapp? The apps used in China , SE Asia or
Japan have quite a different approach than FB.

------
steveharman
Has there been any announcement of third parties being able to depoly their
own contracts or Dapps to Facebook's blockchain?

~~~
pavlov
Here's the developer docs:

[https://developers.libra.org/docs/welcome-to-
libra](https://developers.libra.org/docs/welcome-to-libra)

------
bhouston
Will "Objectional Groups" be preventing from using Libra? Who will define what
is an "Objectional Group"?

------
meruru
I thought creating a currency was illegal. What makes cryptocurrencies so
different that it's ok for companies to do it?

~~~
ur-whale
Illegal in what jurisdiction?

------
golergka
Crucial question for competing with Bitcoin, of course, is simple: will it be
anonymous enough to buy drugs with?

~~~
lawn
Neither Bitcoin or this should really be used to buy drugs with.

On the other hand you have an immutable public record of all your transactions
(Bitcoin) and on the other hand you have bastions of privacy (Facebook) who is
guaranteed to sell your info.

Bitcoin is still better... Known drug transactions will probably be blocked
here outright, while in Bitcoin you might just get caught after the fact.

------
gberger
There's a name conflict. The GBP is called 'libra' in Portuguese- and Spanish-
speaking countries.

~~~
buboard
that's not unusual, e.g. danish/norwegian/swedish korona

------
b-3-n
"Give us your data, you can trust us". Remember how that went?

"Give us your money, you can trust us". Hm...

------
z3t4
When so many large organisations joint it will cost billions, which will have
to be paid by the users.

------
throway4234
I wonder if Facebook's plans are behind the absurd rules put forward by India
regarding bitcoin.

------
spaceflunky
I don't know much about how to mine or obtain crypto currencies.

Can someone explain to me how I would get Libra?

~~~
percentcer
You buy it from a trusted member node

~~~
spaceflunky
So there is no way to mine it? You just buy it at a set price?

Does that mean that it is not really designed to be "invested in" the way
people invest in bitcoin and others?

~~~
omarchowdhury
Correct. It's backed by a basket of fiat currencies (USD, GBP, JPY, EUR).

------
democracy
Why is renaming of 'facebook credits' to 'libra' so important to anyone?

------
aflag
Interesting. I'm curious to see how it plays out. I can see it working if they
make Libras look valuable in itself for their user base (eg. Being able to get
Libras from other users for services or content and then being able to buy
real things with it). Given it's not "real money" would you be exempt of most
taxes?

~~~
gruez
Pretty sure barter is taxed as well. Otherwise you’d see people evading sales
taxes by transacting in bitcoin a long time ago.

~~~
jimnotgym
It even attracts VAT, yes

------
j45
If FAANG are the new digital nation states, one can see why they want their
own currency

------
Lucadg
It's amazing as the white paper manages to avoid mentioning Bitcoin and
Ethereum.

------
ddffre
We cannot trust them with privacy, so how we supposed to trust them with our
money?

------
Bob995
Does this mean Faceberg will finally get regulated as a payment processor?

------
alexnewman
I'm banned from facebook for having names they don't approve of.

------
stdoutrap
Recently made a song called "Good for the world != good for Facebook". Might
be of interest to peeps in this thread...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zJSmiimxoQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zJSmiimxoQ)

------
golergka
Not only they built it in Rust, but they also built Move - language clearly
derived from Rust, which uses ownership as a way to manage monetary resources.
Regardless of trust issues with different companies involved, that's just
beautiful engineering.

~~~
karl_schlagenfu
Why is choosing a specific programming language, Rust, "beautiful
engineering"?

~~~
golergka
I might have worded myself poorly. Using ownership concept for this new
purpose is beautiful engineering.

------
envolt
Basic Question - What is the problem that they are trying to solve?

------
rkachowski
Why, of course I trust Facebook with my financial transactions. Why would they
lie about privacy? This can only be an altruistic course of action

~~~
jarfil
Cryptocoins are not about privacy, the ledgers are public so no conflict
there.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
There are cryptocoins like zcash where the ledger isn't open in the same sense
it is on Bitcoin or Libra.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
No, the ledger is open. It's just that the transaction data is encrypted so
only the recipient can decrypt it, and accompanied by a zero-knowledge proof
so the money supply retains its integrity even with the encryption in place.

------
elwell

        (is-coincidence? (= (alpha->num-sum "Libra")
                            42
                            answers/life
                            answers/universe
                            answers/everything))

------
yayr
How are the exact payout rules for the investment tokens?

------
typon
So this is like Alipay or Wechat Pay but for Facebook?

------
Siederwehen
This seems to me like a modern version of scrip.

------
mountainofdeath
It's amazing how short of a memory people have. The financial system has at
least a few centuries of experience and todays regulatory climate is a
reflection of the lessons learned. To some, these rules may seem arbitrary and
they sometimes are but people forget how things before.

I find it amusing that the big selling point behind the initial round of
cryptocurrency was its lack of regulation.

~~~
staplers

      its lack of regulation.
    

This is false actually. Cryptocurrency's "selling point" is being regulated by
mathematical rules and _not_ by potentially-corrupted policymakers.

~~~
firethief
Fundamental rules govern its existence, but not what's done with it. Most
cryptocurrency in use today isn't "regulated" by mathematics any more than
banknotes are "regulated" by physics.

~~~
lone_haxx0r
That's good.

------
wokawoka
so...what is the "news" here? they control our news and social normality and
they want to control our money now....

------
xmly
Want to participate in the project!

How could become a partner?

------
shroom
I’d give a penny to hear Alexander Hamiltons opinion on this.

------
tracker1
Yeah, like I'll _EVER_ trust Facebook to manage my money... If you're
libertarian or conservative, you definitely cannot trust Facebook to not keep
your money, let alone safe. And if you aren't, you probably shouldn't.

I don't mean to be tin foil hat... but given the amount of account deletions
that FB, Twitter, Pinterest and to some extent Youtube and Instagram. I don't
agree with the people blocked necessarily, but it belies anything resembling
what should be required to _trust_ them.

------
buhrmi
This is horrible. Don't touch it.

------
justinmchase
Why didn't they just use bitcoin?

------
King-Aaron
Libra is a well known brand for sanitary products. I wonder if that's going to
be problematic for either entity.

------
curiousgal
One step closer to dystopia.

~~~
zxcb1
It does not feel right, does it?

~~~
tgragnato
> 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans [...] to operate as preliminary “validator
> nodes”

What could possibly go wrong?

~~~
Spivak
Is this really any different than your ability to buy things in-practice gated
nigh exclusively by MasterCard and Visa?

It sounds less like a dystopia and more like the tech sector and payment
processors have been collectively itching to escape the current banking
system.

~~~
tgragnato
If there is one thing I learnt is that using a techno-bubble elite speech you
can cover up a large number of loopholes, fraud schemes, ... Regulators and
prosecutors know payment processors extremely well; once you start using
another language they're partially unable to compute.

In this sense the choice of initial validators alarms me. Trust is something
that must be earned: it's different because I know the evils of the system I'm
using, I don't know the evils of this system and it might be worse.

...worse...

> In light of this, Facebook aims for the project to be fully “permissionless”
> — rather than permissioned, where membership of the Association is only
> granted to a select few —after five years and transition to a proof of stake
> network.

"me looking at the GitHub repository": there's a lot of technical debt that
needs to be addressed, where is the _design_ for this stuff? A "we'll fix it"
is not enough, certain issues require a lot more work than code development.

------
pfortuny
Honest question: energy use?

~~~
lawn
It doesn't use mining, so energy use isn't a concern.

------
blueadept111
Yawn. This is a tempest in a teapot. Why would anyone bother to use Libra?
People buy crypto mostly for speculation, hoping that it will go up (or at
least not lose value over time, due to inflation). A stable coin that's pegged
to major currencies is no better than the major currencies. It's also no
worse. It's boring, and most people won't care.

------
Phlarp
Libra? ... Gemini? This kid just can't let go of the past can he...

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

------
jsilence
Kill it with fire!

------
NoblePublius
It’s Disney dollars for Facebook ads. Yawn.

------
j0hnM1st
anything facebookish trends.

------
momentmaker
I do not think Zuckerberg’s ultimate goal is running a stable coin, although
he could live with that arrangement and benefit from it for as long as
necessary. I think the main reason Facebook has structured the coin with fiat
backing is to make it seem less threatening to the current monetary
establishment and world governments. It’s a way of saying Facebook isn’t
trying to compete with the current status quo, but rather make the status quo
run more smoothly and efficiently. Then, once it has a foot in the door and
gains traction amongst its massive user base, all Facebook has to do is wait
until the current assortment of global governments and their respective
central banks fail.

At that stage it can remove the fiat currency backing (who will want it
anyway), and let FacebookCoin free float. With the credibility of global
governments and central banks in the toilet by then, Facebook and its
corporate oligarch partners will be in a prime position to take over a sizable
chunk of worldwide payments using their own currency. In other words, this
appears to be a long-term scheme by elements of corporate oligarchy to
position themselves as an unelected and unaccountable future sovereign power.

All that said, I want to be clear about something. Just because the above
represents a plausible scenario doesn’t mean it’ll work out that way. If
enough people recognize the dangers of this scheme, it could very well be
stopped in its tracks.

In this regard, I want to highlight one of the biggest threats posed by a
financial system run by a corporate oligarchy. For one thing, there’s the
ever-present issue of censorship. I understand why many in the “crypto” world
are fine with FacebookCoin since they see it as a threat to state power and
control, but this is myopic in my view. Let’s not forget who is silencing the
voices of Americans online in 2019. It’s not the state, but rather Facebook,
Google, Twitter, etc. If we allow these companies to gain control of payments,
you can be sure the same sort of unaccountable blacklisting will follow in the
world of transactions.

Also, similar to what many of the tech giants have done with speech, Facebook
could easily team up with governments or government linked deep-state type
entities to stop transactions or freeze the accounts of “problematic”
citizens. It would be a very convenient way to get around the rule of law in a
place like the U.S., and would represent a perfect symbiotic relationship of
tyranny between what could at that point be a vestigial state apparatus and
empowered tech giant oligarchs.

Ultimately, what’s going on here gets at the crux of everything I’m trying to
discuss at Liberty Blitzkrieg. Namely, that the old world is dying and the
most important thing that’ll occur over any of our lifetimes is the sort of
world we create, or allow to be created, in its wake.

The launching of FacebookCoin represents one segment of corporate oligarchy
throwing its hat in the ring, and a very dangerous one at that given the
already existing dominance of tech giants in the communications realm. From my
perspective, communications and money are two aspects of human existence so
fundamental to liberty they should remain as free and uninhibited as possible.
To trust these things to a collection of billionaires and their corporations
would represent the pinnacle of short-sightedness and insanity.

------
PovilasID
H H p x

------
timemachine
FaceBucks

------
buryat
how do i mine it?

~~~
maaarghk
from the whitepaper:

    
    
        The Libra Association also serves as the entity through which the Libra Reserve
        is managed, and hence the stability and growth of the Libra economy are
        achieved. The association is the only party able to create (mint) and destroy
        (burn) Libra. Coins are only minted when authorized resellers have purchased
        those coins from the association with fiat assets to fully back the new coins.
        Coins are only burned when the authorized resellers sell Libra coin to the
        association in exchange for the underlying assets. Since authorized resellers
        will always be able to sell Libra coins to the reserve at a price equal to the
        value of the basket, the Libra Reserve acts as a “buyer of last resort.” These
        activities of the association are governed and constrained by a Reserve
        Management Policy that can only be changed by a supermajority of the association
        members.

~~~
JaimeThompson
Does the white paper make clear how / if those rules can be changed in the
future?

~~~
hackernudes
It looks like the Libra Foundation would need to approve with a 2/3 majority
of representatives.

From [https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-
association](https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-association):

> All decisions are brought to the council, and major policy or technical
> decisions require the consent of two-thirds of the votes, the same
> supermajority of the network required in the BFT consensus protocol.

------
diimdeep
A little closer to dystopia of Black Mirror
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits)

------
sschueller
Their next efforts will probably be lobby like crazy to ban any other coin
that is not "Approved".

~~~
IAmEveryone
It’s funny how one of the core believes of cryptocurrencies has always been
that (a) government will fear and attempt to ban it, and (b) that the
technology would make such attempts impossible.

Yet what we have seen over the years is really more of a bemused interest from
existing institutions, with targeted and rather effective interventions only
where actual harm was done, such as ICOs.

It’s almost as if these conspiracy theories about the FED or Credit Card
companies’ lobbying power, or the “International Banking Elite” weren’t
exactly right.

~~~
username444
You're looking at the wrong timescale. Institutions and founders of powerful
corporations have life long time scales to subtly tweak and manipulate their
messaging and approach.

Look back in 10 years to see whether the conspiracy theorist were wrong. I
have no doubt the lobbying to exclude and put "regulations" in place is
coming.

~~~
CaptainZapp
_I have no doubt the lobbying to exclude and put "regulations" in place is
coming._

I have no doubt that you're right. But not because of some evil conspiracy by
a cabal of bankers, but in order to protect society as a whole.

Also, care to explain why you put regulations is scare quotes? In my book that
disqualifies your comment pretty much.

~~~
username444
I agree that some regulation serves a purpose.

But the way many things are implemented, especially when there's lobbying
behind it, creates an environment where the only people who can navigate it
are the people lobbying for it. As much as we need regulations for pollution,
I'm of the opinion we need less regulation for many other things.

Banks are a great example. Banks should be regulated. If I put my money into a
bank I want it guaranteed there.

But the industry has successfully lobbied itself extensions in their charters
and ventured into financial and investment territory, which I don't believe
should be coupled with banks.

Investing and securities (like cryptocurrencies) have an inherent downside -
it can go up OR down. I don't need a short sighted politician to put laws in
place to protect me from having my investments go down. That's part of the
game. If you don't know what you're getting into, you shouldn't get into it.

But thanks to regulations, it's essentially impossible to open a bank or have
competitive services, while they get to abuse their positions to leech money
from the general population.

There's no reason that banks (safely storing money) and investment companies
should be a single entity.

And before you mention inflation, realize that your savings account makes 0%
interest, for any useful purpose.

If I want to start or invest in crypto under my own accord, there's no reason
I shouldn't.

Don't want to lose your money on cryptocurrency? Don't put your money into it.
We don't need regulations for that. We need common sense.

This idea that you deserve a risk free ROI is a moral hazard for society.

Disclaimer: I haven't ever bought cryptocurrencies, because I don't understand
it and I'm not an idiot. It's gambling, pure and simple, and the people who
lost their money deserved it.

------
LinuxBender
So Mark Z. wants me to buy his Chuck-E-Cheese(c) tokens, then see where I
spend them. /s

In all seriousness, are they offsetting the coin generation with windmills,
sea turbines, or geothermal plants? How much power is being consumed by FB and
the small handful of banks that are cranking out these tokens?

~~~
tommoor
There is no mining, coins are "minted" by approved partners

~~~
LinuxBender
Someone has to mine them though, right?

~~~
helen___keller
No

~~~
LinuxBender
I suppose I am confused. Ether currency is supposed to be a hard to create
thing, much like the theory of gold being a scarce mineral. If someone can
just "mint" it without mining, then it is not a scarce resource and should not
be worth anything.

~~~
helen___keller
It's tied to real world assets, 1 to 1 with a basket of currencies. It's only
scarce if this rule continues to be followed, so valuation of the virtual
asset will depend on users' trust that the real world assets exist and will
always exist in a 1 to 1 ratio with the virtual asset.

For an example of this being attempted already, see Tether / USDT which is
(supposedly) 1 for 1 backed by US dollars.

~~~
LinuxBender
I see. Thankyou for the explanation.

------
ojosilva
Libra, a new global currency... with an old name!

"Libra" is the latin name of what is now known as the "pound" and used in many
Latin-rooted languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian come to mind)
to refer to pound related currencies, including the British pound sterling
("libra esterlina") and similar currencies from Egypt to Lebanon to Gibraltar
pound. It was also behind many discontinued currencies from the past, ie. the
Italian Lira or the French Livre.

IMHO a bad choice in naming for something you want to call "new".

~~~
osullivj
Indeed. Libra, solarii, denarii == pounds, shillings, pennies in the old pre
1970 British system. Sometimes referred to as LSD.

~~~
twic
A minor correction: librae, _solidi_ , denarii. Solidi were so called,
according to wikipedia, because (at first) they were solid gold.

Solidus would also be a decent name for a stablecoin!

~~~
Freak_NL
> Solidus would also be a decent name for a stablecoin!

Its inevitable currency symbol is already part of the Unicode standard: /

[https://unicode-table.com/en/002F/](https://unicode-table.com/en/002F/)

An interesting related titbit: the Japanese currency sign for the Yen (¥) used
to be encoded as the ASCII backslash (\\) in the pre-Unicode era. Japanese
fonts simply put the Yen-sign there.

~~~
twic
And on the Japanese version of Windows, the yen symbol was the path separator,
right? I vaguely remember this:

[https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051014-20/?p=33...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051014-20/?p=33753)

------
facefuck
This is bad. Facebook will bake this into their software, even if they claim
they won’t do it, they will. It’s no problem because you can always just use
fiat right? How are you going to do that when the hoard of idiots out there
adopt Libra without considering the long term implications? It could be that
if you refuse to use libra, you’ll be left out in the cold. It will be like
Facebook all over again. Facebook gets popular in 2007 — hoard of idiots dump
all their personal information on it without a single thought about whether or
not that’s a smart thing to do — hoards of idiots make Facebook intertwined
with life itself without considering how messed up it is — people like me are
left out in the cold because we refuse to engage — ten fucking years later
people wake up and I’m vindicated — two years later the whole thing apparently
is starting again and people are too dumb to see it.

~~~
WhiteOwlLion
Is PayPal any different?

~~~
facefuck
Just explain your opinion you annoying idiot.

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Could you please
not create accounts to do that with?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
_bxg1
Terrifying, really. The world is hurdling back towards a feudalist society,
with corporations instead of kings.

~~~
mmsimanga
From where I am standing I wonder if this is not reflection of the
ineffectiveness of governments. In my part of the world there is a lot more
talk about devolution, basically self governance of the different regions.
Everyone is sick and tired of decisions being made from the capital city by
people who do not have your interests at all.

~~~
codethief
Democracies _need_ to be ineffective and slow to some degree in order to be
stable and to allow all people to participate. Otherwise, a coup d'état would
be far too easy because efficiency means that only little time would pass
between a decision (whether legal or illegal) being made and it getting
implemented.

~~~
mountainofdeath
There is a reason why it's much harder to change federal law than a local
ordinance. The broader the effect, the more difficult it should be. Effective
government should not be about kneejerk reactions.

------
dx7tnt
"Facebook is enforcing a strict separation between users’ social data—their
Facebook likes, photos, etc—and the financial data that will be available on
Libra’s network. There will not, he insisted, be a readily available data
trove connecting users’ transactional data to their Facebook profiles"

I find this extremely hard to believe coming from a company who's entire M.O.
is building a profile of its users and tracking everything they do across the
internet and beyond.

~~~
mrweasel
Facebook seems awfully quiet about WHY they're developing this thing. There's
a lot of fancy and positive spin on "helping people in countries without
access to banking" and that fine, but they do need to explain how they plan to
turn a profit on the project. Until they do, we should assume that it WILL
involve selling/exploiting the financial data of the users.

------
jrvxo
It was already tried. It was called Bitcoin. It failed spectacularly. At least
this looks like it could work.

I trust my government more than I trust these companies so I will keep using
fiat, but this may be an option for other people.

~~~
sins
Could you elaborate on what Bitcoin failed at?

~~~
hjk05
I tried to buy a cup of coffee recently at a bitcoin only cafe. Though I
didn’t end up paying with bitcoin because it took a day for the bitcoin atm
deposit to clear. So I asked a friend who worked in the building to spot me a
cup of coffee, and he paid... by making a line on a piece of paper they used
to do bookkeeping denoted in fiat because no-one wanted to go through the
hassle of bitcoin transfers and no one had enough trust in the currency to
keep prices in bitcoins, so they just tracked the costs in fiat. All of this
in a “bitcoin only” cafe.

Bitcoin as a penny-stock investment opportunity still seems successful, but as
a viable currency it seems to have failed. And now cue the people saying that
bitcoin was never actually intended to be used like a digital coin...

~~~
0x445442
From what I can tell the only way to obtain bitcoin without providing personal
information is to find someone on Craigslist willing to transfer you some
coin... for a 15% markup.

EDIT: That's the bigger failure

~~~
gridlockd
If you think that's bad markup, try money laundering _without crypto_!

SCNR

------
codesushi42
Honest question: what will be the incentive for consumers to use Libra over
existing solutions like PayPal, Apple Pay, Venmo etc?

~~~
88840-8855
1) easier p2p transfer built into apps they have already installed on their
devices

2) international transfers are instant and low-cost

3) applepay, venmo and paypal are made for the developed markets. this one
targets similar markets where Vodafone has its m-peso

------
marknadal
I think a lot of people are missing the point:

All they need to do is to have 1%+ cheaper fee than cards.

And no matter people's ideals, all businesses will add it.

------
latte_machiato
I wish reporters would stop using "cryptocurrency" and "Facebook" in the same
sentence.

------
Calib3r
I sincerely doubt David Wong will offer any rebuttals to your very valid
points.

~~~
dang
Publishing someone's name in a thread as a weapon in an argument is a personal
attack and the sort of thing we ban accounts for. Please don't do that again.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20213673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20213673)
and marked it off-topic.

------
BackBackBack
For free!

Edit: Due to censorship I request you to remove this account since you've not
constructed a way to do it ourselves.

[http://remove.org/removal-requested](http://remove.org/removal-requested)

~~~
dang
Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN? We're trying for a
more thoughtful sort of discussion here.

If you'd read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and post in the intended spirit of the site, we'd be grateful. I noticed a
thread from a few days ago where this account got involved in a religious
flamewar. That's just what we don't want on HN.

You might also find these links helpful for getting the spirit of this site:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html)

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20216561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20216561).

~~~
BackBackBack
Due to censorship I request you to remove this account since you've not
constructed a way to do it ourselves.

[http://remove.org/removal-requested](http://remove.org/removal-requested)

------
toomuchequate
Hmm, should I use United States Dollars? OR Facebook United States Dollars?

I'm going with G.) Other.

Hording cash is a terrible investment idea.

EDIT: Hording and Investing typically means to generate future value. Daily
spending money can be done in cash. I would hope I didn't need to explicitly
say this, but hey, economics is hard.

~~~
mbrock
That’s why I personally don’t use money at all and do all my daily shopping by
negotiating bond trades with the cashiers

~~~
LunaSea
Trading cattle is my way to go but I have to say that I'm getting sick of all
the chickens I get back as change.

------
komalsharma05
Facebook has finally revealed the details of its cryptocurrency, Libra, which
will let you buy things or send money to people with nearly zero fees. Here is
more information: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/18/facebook-
libra/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/18/facebook-libra/)

------
zeofig
Buy buy buy! The secret to crypto is to buy high, sell higher! Upwards to
Zucktopia!

------
mxuribe
Wait, wait, wait...so...

if "Satoshi Nakamoto" == "Mark Zuckerberg":

    
    
        print("Whoa, mind blown!") 
        

else

    
    
        print("Carry on. Nothing to see here.") 
         
         

jk

~~~
Jaim
Western Union transfer costs 35 dollars to Argentina. Libra may be cheaper.

~~~
Jaim
Money transfers if international are prohibitively expensive. Lets see how
this thingie works.

------
onion-soup
>1000 tx/s

Nice try Zuc. But BSV can do 10k tx/s already AND it supports tokens as well

~~~
buboard
It’s really not about the technicals but that they will handle billions of
wallets

------
arnaudsm
Satoshi wanted a world without banks and centralisation. Now his tech is used
for the exact opposite.

Just like the Internet that was diverted by big corporations. Let's not make
the same mistake gain.

------
jancsika
Since this is a thread presumably filled with cryptocurrency experts, here's
my own personal captcha:

What is Chaumian cash?

And here's my own personal re-captcha:

Why hasn't some small country somewhere issued their own Chaumian cash to
attract... anything? Seems like there would be quite a lot of ways to
implement and configure such a system. And it wouldn't take that big of a
reserve to help fuel, say, a burgeoning blog micropayment system to the tune
of what a Patreon or whatever currently offers.

There's plenty of small countries which offer all kinds of dastardly financial
instruments to rich people, so I don't see "it would fuel money laundering" as
an explanation for the complete lack of Chaumian cash in our universe.

Edit: clarification

