Cyrptocurrency news: Facebook launches Libra

[Andy Black]

Mark Zuckerberg announced the following earlier today:

https://www.facebook.com/4/posts/10107693323579671

View: https://www.facebook.com/4/posts/10107693323579671

 

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[Atu]

To begin:
"team of experts in risk management focused on preventing people from using Calibra for fraudulent purposes"

• Who decides what is fraudulent?
• And who decides what it takes to be an expert?
• What is the prevention mechanism?

How the above connects with: "And it's secured by cryptography which helps keep your money safe"

• Is there going to be a team of uber-moral experts who have access to every account around?
• Is the encryption algorythm going to be an open-source so we all could be sure there are no backdoors?

 

[OlivierMo]

More control from this guy. Thanks but no thanks. They'll end up being like the Chinese gov like a social scoring system and they'll block you from buying things.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Privacy and safety will be built into every step. For example, Calibra will have a dedicated team of experts in risk management focused on preventing people from using Calibra for fraudulent purposes.

Like Zuck's "experts" who get to determine what is fake news and what isn't?

I'll pass on anything Facebook including this.

Nonetheless, it does put a stamp of validation on blockchain and the longevity of cryptocurrencies.

 

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[A_Random_Guy]

It doesn't provide anonymity which is the selling point of Bitcoin. Facebook is not trustworthy.
I don't understand how they are claiming that it is "stable" even though it is just launched. BTC is highly volatile even after 5-6 years of existence.
Investing in ICO and IEO seems better in my option.
The only way to profit from CC like this is to become one of the sharks.

 

[Ninjakid]

Anyone seen Mr. Robot? The main corporation which is like the antagonist of the show has control of basically every industry in the US, and even has their own currency. So they get to control every aspect of peoples' lives.

Lol oh Zuck...

 

[socaldude]

I'm pretty sure one of the purposes of crypto was so that you didn't have big companies like facebook as big brother.

There is no way in hell I would trust facebook with my money.

 

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[James Fake]

I wish I had another arm so I could give this Libra three thumbs down lol

 

[Xeon]

Another reason why these giga tech-bro companies like FB and Amazon need to be broken up.
Given enough time, I'm pretty sure FB will end up like Amazon - controlling pretty much everything from buying and running news media companies to running their own banks.

 

[TonyStark]

Another reason why these giga tech-bro companies like FB and Amazon need to be broken up.
Given enough time, I'm pretty sure FB will end up like Amazon - controlling pretty much everything from buying and running news media companies to running their own banks.

There was a time America used to break up big monopolies, now we just fund them and give them tax breaks.

 

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[The Abundant Man]

 

[Atu]

Gentlemen, there is one thing for sure: if this cryptocurrency actually starts we will be able to sit down, watch and enjoy the biggest marketing campaign in the history of Facebook. Case studies on that campaign will be written for years.

Another reason why these giga tech-bro companies like FB and Amazon need to be broken up.
Given enough time, I'm pretty sure FB will end up like Amazon - controlling pretty much everything from buying and running news media companies to running their own banks.

Dear Sir, I would be really careful here:

1. Everyone on this forum is dreaming about growing a company bigger than others. Once you grow yours, you may change your mind.
2. In a free economy any company grows big because it gives better product/service for smaller price.
3. In a free economy any big company stays big, until it will get outrun in pleasing its customer by small, more versatile companies - study the example of KODAK in the world of digital photography.
4. I do understand we are not in a free economy. We should be asking to get it back, do not cry for more government regulations.
5. You are absolutely right that any company should never be given any tax advantage over the others. In fact no company should never be taxed, because:
   1. It creates a situation when work and activity is being punished with taxation
   2. It reveals most important secret of company - its money - to most corrupted group of people - government bureaucrats.
   3. We should only tax opportunities: owning land or being an able-bodied man (the second with a fixed, small sum of money) - it will create incentive to go and do something.
6. If in doubt read Bastiat: http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
7. or Mises: Mises Library

And best wishes

 

[Andy Black]

Stacks of articles appearing as expected. I’ve only read one article on it and thought it was interesting.

What are the masses going to do? Will there be a gold rush somewhere?

Facebook Unveils Libra Cryptocurrency, Targeting 1.7 Billion Unbanked

Facebook's newly unveiled Libra blockchain is tackling remittances at first, but it could have a much broader impact.

www.coindesk.com

 

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[Roli]

Interesting, just had a quick scan of the whitepaper. As usual with these things, there is no talk on how they will distribute the blockchain.

Essentially you have to create block rewards, otherwise why the hell am I going to burn electricity 24/7 just to distribute your blockchain?

Still though, worth keeping an eye on.

 

[cy-]

Facebook, VISA & Mastercard?

No F*cking way.

So we have the powerhouses of VISA & Mastercard, who essentially controls the entire payment industry in modern countries, thus controlling almost all companies in some way, at least the B2C ones. Now combine this with one of the biggest controllers of private people in the west, Facebook, who can essentially wipe your identity online, should the algorithm feel for it.

What do you get when you combine these?

Having dealt with all three of these merciless companies throughout the past years, I am NOT looking forward to this.

 

[Andy Black]

What opportunities do you guys see?

 

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[Roli]

What opportunities do you guys see?

Quite simply, the monetisation of your facebook content.

I think FB want to try and snatch some eyes from Youtube, if the crypto works in the way I expect it to, then each like will have a monetary value. Therefore content producers will be clamouring all over the platform to get their stuff in front of eyeballs.

Of course there will still be facebook looking to boost your content if you pay them, so in that sense it will be very good for them, but also for the content producer who can potentially make a profit by boosting.

The main thing I have a problem with, is it won't really be a real crypto, yet people will still call it that. The currency will more closely resemble the tokens within Second Life and other such reality games. Whereby it is centrally controlled and is inflated or deflated at the whim of the controlling body, in this case Facebook.

The whole point of a crypto is that there are very clear rules set out at launch and those rules are set in stone, or rather in code, and those rules cannot be broken by anyone. Secondly a crypto currency is the representitive token of a distributed ledger. In other words the history of interactions is held on many computers around the world, all running the software of the blockchain.

Therefore if the blockchain just exists on a few corporate servers, then that is another example of how it is a centralised token and not a true cryptocurrency.

Unfortunately none of that will matter to the average person in the street, "Facebook now has a crypto" is all they'll know.

Anyway, that's the long winded way of saying, yes there will probably be opportunity to make some money using this model, however Facebook can and will pull the rug out from under you at some point in the future.

 

[Vanderbilt]

isnt it a stable coin like USDT?

 

[Jamshed33]

Great update so far. Thank you so much!

 

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[nitrousflame]

So I read the whitepaper yesterday, and my Twitter feed has been saturated with Libra stuff since its release. From my understanding so far, Libra is quite the amalgamation of different coins and protocols. To put it simply, it appears to be a cross between many stable coins (because it's backed by several government's fiat and bonds) and EOS (because of its "permissioned" nature and similarity to delegated proof of stake).

Some key interesting points:

• Rather than just being another plain old stable coin, it is instead backed by a blend of different government currencies and bonds. This has not been done before, to my knowledge.
• Much of its code is open sourced, allowing others to freely develop and interact with it in a permissionless fashion.
• Due to its similarity to delegated proof of stake, it's technically not as centralized as you might think. Facebook will not be the sole validator, for instance. It will still pale in comparison to Bitcoin and other traditional coins, but relative to the likes of PayPal, or even other stable coins, it is indeed more decentralized.
• Next, the lack of transaction fees is HUGE. This has potential to disrupt many of the existing players in the space, IMHO, and could also turn into the biggest on-ramp to traditional cryptocurrencies yet.
• So how will it make money? The short answer is that validators will earn interest on the deposits. I think the more interesting longer answer is yet to be fully revealed, but I have a hunch that this will grant validators deep insight into the overarching purchase habits of its users. Think facebook pixel, but instead of being limited to a website, you can now see into the user's entire purchase history...
• One thing I have yet to find out is how open the ledger will be to us non-validators on the outside.

 

[csalvato]

What opportunities do you guys see?

The biggest and only opportunities I see worth mentioning are for large corporations and Facebook itself.

Maybe selling high volume low margin goods to the 1.7B unbanked people. But then you’re ethically conceding that FB should be doing this, when they shouldn’t. It’s also giving FB complete control of your business. No thanks.

 

[scottmsul]

I plan on reading the paper eventually, based on reading news articles and comments I think I have a rough idea. These would be my main questions going into the paper:

• Is the coin decentralized or owned by Facebook?
• If it's decentralized, how will it be kept stable? I would think someone needs to continuously buy and sell tokens in order to maintain the price level. If it's decentralized, where's the incentive to do that?
• How will Facebook profit from it? If it's a stablecoin, it won't be possible to profit from speculation. I saw some mention of interest payments to contributors who help verify proof-of-stake. Will this be higher than the market interest rate? It would have to be, otherwise there's not much incentive to contribute.
• If interest payments are higher than the market rate, where's that money coming from? I saw some mention that transactions will have low fees, but can those both be true?
• What's Facebook's ultimate motive here? I don't think it's interest payments from proof-of-stake, that will be profitable but not hugely so. Is it to enable micro-transactions on their platforms? I doubt that's the only motive, otherwise they would just use an existing coin. Is it to track all transactions globally? If so, how will that possible if it's decentralized, unless anyone is able to?

Ultimately I don't trust Facebook, I think they are at least as interested in power/control/data as they are in making money. They might claim it's "decentralized" but leading the development effort on a brand new coin takes resources, and they are not a charity.

 

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[GPM]

You guys are looking at this from the perspective of having an education and somewhat understanding tech.

What about the billions of the world who don't give a shit about anything other than TV reruns, YouTube stars, Instagram and Facebook? They might just see an easy way to send money and buy more useless shit.

As much as it frightens me, I see this as being massive.

Either way, good or bad, I see this as massive validation of crypto and should be great for anything else related. The entire media was screaming about how it is nothing but a scam for the last 3 years. Suddenly the largest companies in the world all jump on in a very public way? Sure the initial reaction might be sour, but I bet this just opens the floodgates in the coming years.

 

[OlivierMo]

You guys are looking at this from the perspective of having an education and somewhat understanding tech.

What about the billions of the world who don't give a shit about anything other than TV reruns, YouTube stars, Instagram and Facebook? They might just see an easy way to send money and buy more useless shit.

As much as it frightens me, I see this as being massive.

Either way, good or bad, I see this as massive validation of crypto and should be great for anything else related. The entire media was screaming about how it is nothing but a scam for the last 3 years. Suddenly the largest companies in the world all jump on in a very public way? Sure the initial reaction might be sour, but I bet this just opens the floodgates in the coming years.

You're right. If they monetize and pay you for your engagement, your likes, your time spent on FB, and you can buy shit, then it's a kind of socialism/communism using a private company. People wasting their life and getting paid for it. That's idiocracy. Great

 

[B. Cole]

From the company that has held my business’ username hostage for over a year and has no customer service department to respond to my dozens of inquiries trying to get MY trademarked, unused by anyone else name released - no thanks.

F*ck u Zuck. Respond to my trouble reports so I can get on with paying you ad money.

Sorry, end rant.




Nope, f*ck Zuck again.

 

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[AppMan]

It doesn't provide anonymity which is the selling point of Bitcoin. Facebook is not trustworthy.
I don't understand how they are claiming that it is "stable" even though it is just launched. BTC is highly volatile even after 5-6 years of existence.
Investing in ICO and IEO seems better in my option.
The only way to profit from CC like this is to become one of the sharks.

Because it is backed by same ammount of real currency . It doesn't mean will have fixed value but will not swing up and down like BC

 

[GPM]

You're right. If they monetize and pay you for your engagement, your likes, your time spent on FB, and you can buy shit, then it's a kind of socialism/communism using a private company. People wasting their life and getting paid for it. That's idiocracy. Great

That is exactly what they said they would do. They will give you fractions of coins for clicking ads and stuff while on the platform. So this means they can charge advertisers 50 cents a click, and payout 5 cents a click, and make mad cash the whole time.

Of course we all have a year to see how this will play out, but I think it will be a game changer for sure

 

[eekern]

That is exactly what they said they would do. They will give you fractions of coins for clicking ads and stuff while on the platform. So this means they can charge advertisers 50 cents a click, and payout 5 cents a click, and make mad cash the whole time.

Of course we all have a year to see how this will play out, but I think it will be a game changer for sure

If this is the case they will screw the advertisers and click farms will appear, I doubt it.

 

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[OlivierMo]

If this is the case they will screw the advertisers and click farms will appear, I doubt it.

I have a friend in advertising. The advertisers don't even care b/c ultimately they charge their own clients. So the more clicks, the better the advertisers look.

 

[AppMan]

I have a friend in advertising. The advertisers don't even care b/c ultimately they charge their own clients. So the more clicks, the better the advertisers look.

Not really, because the return of that advertising will deminish and people will abandon using Fb for advertising if they didn't see value to their spending