Earlier this week Facebook Inc. disclosed the first details of its take on cryptocurrency; Libra. Breathing new life into the cryptocurrency hype-train and forcing companies to reconsider the validity of the the cryptocurrency market, Libra launches next year with the promise of protecting customer information.

Libra will be an alternative to Bitcoin and its many competitors in a market that many consider to be oversaturated. Facebook hopes to use its unique branding to differentiate Libra from the competition; opening the world of cryptocurrency to a much wider base. Those who use Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp will have access to Libra once it launches.

Don’t understand cryptocurrency? Watch this Clickhole video where a man will mumble an explanation at you.​

​

In all seriousness, accurately and fully explaining cryptocurrency falls outside the scope of this news piece. For those interested, I highly recommend this Investopedia article explaining Blockchain, the record-keeping technology behind cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Libra.

Source

 

[notimp]

Those all sound like positives to me.

Sure but then you are an idiot. Let me prove that point to you.

- The state you live in usually has the sole power monopole as in "police can come and restrict your freedom" - state also demands taxes to be payed in the states money - controlling exchange rates. Owning worth in a phony baloony spreadshed - is worth nothing. You'll be the most streadsheediest rich person in jail - if you dont resort to "real" money to pay taxes. Which is why currency exchanges are kind of a thing. And even will be in the digital realm. Although the promise is, that they will have less "power" - because people will act on promises alone (account balances), for many of their daily tasks - without ever seeing anything that resembles money (that thing to pay taxes in). If you can make people do that. The service you provide is literally zero. Its almost like a magic trick. Believe. And it works. And if all that you are selling is "believe" - literally anybody can do that. Apple (applepay), Google (Google wallet), Amazon (Amazon paymnet), Paypal (something, something ebay),...Welcome to the corperate store.

And corporation then only interacts with the state (former monopolist of "money") - at the end of a day - to compare balance sheets. All the billion transactions during that day - suddenly are removed from any 'real' economy. They just got privaticed. What has person X done? Facebook cant tell you dear state - we so sorry. Now - how could this ever become an issue? Think. Think hard.

- 80% used for money laundering is no joke. The only reason that crypto currencies get away with it currently is - that the amount of money within these economies is limited. Otherwise feds all over the world would have cracked down on their use - as they did in china. China had a real problem of capital flight related to crypto - where when you are your typical unethical business man, or sweatshop owner, you would extract as much currency as possible out of the country and convert to western currencies - if you expected an economic downturn. Stuff like this becomes real very fast. Which brings us to.

- Circumventing international financial laws, by aiding capital flight.Last bank run potential in greece had the state freeze peoples assets for months, just so money was kept in their economies. Enter a stateless currency the size of what facebook is proposing - and you'll bankrupt entire countries - with mere memes. The potential is there. People are fucking dump. The herd effect is real.

- Crypto based on fiat money (as real currencies, but at least they are backed by "you need to pay taxes in said currency" - so they are demand backed) is exactly responsible for the volatility in the crypto currency markets everybody hates - and that is only there - so people can scam others. Its designed. Everybody hates it - you love it.

Also its dumb as fuck. Because neckbeard with his "mining PC" certainly is doing nothing of worth - at all. So its just the believe of a believe of worth creation. If enough people believe - worth is higher - if people believe less, the currency tanks. And to be honest - the believe in this constituting worth at all is dumb as fuck. But then most things in life are..

Positive side of fiat is, that you can inflate yourself out of a crisis by printing money. Which is also its negative - if governments "do it too often". That part in current crypto is mostly circumvented by having the mining chances fixed on a slope in the beginning.

Facebook wants to bind its virtual currency to the US Dollar - which is a more promising way of trying to combat volatility - of course depending on the securities you have in your balance sheets. So fiat - with the promise not to act on it.

- Neckbeards proposing, that a computer sucking energy generates wealth is the dumbest shit on earth. It really is. Its useless. Its even harmful.

What made crypto sucessfull though - is to give self proposed nerds a way to seemingly generate worth - by doing something "magical" - which none of them understood. This served the purpose to distribute "stakes" - quite well actually. At least initially. So the money you are getting for your computer doing dumb shit. Is actually the exchange for prepping up the entire system - in a distributed fashion.

If you dont need distributed fashion (faceboom doesnt) - cost of crypto currency becomes much less - because all the effing stuff you do "to trust no one" can be left out. Currently - with crypto not doing jack shit in terms of "mass transactions" - you already have the footprint of minor developed wold countries. Thats the legacy of proof of work.


So everything that you think sounds like a positive - is a huge, factual and very real issue.

So I'm saying that you are dumb.

And I'm reiterating, that everyone in here thinks about "what would this mean for me" - when the real issue is - what would this mean for certain countries, the next financial crisis, economies of trust, setting in stone certain power structures (mastercard, visa, paypal, ... and the california clique).

You guys have no idea, what it means to set this live and start to scam transaction fees off of billions of transactions every day. The oil barons of the past would be laughable petty thiefs in comparison.

This is the first attempt at a multinational corporate state - and everyone on social media is thinking as far as their smartphone use and their dick.

People are so stupid - it hurts. You havent even realized, that f.e. frances finace minister rang alarm bells, and all over the world people are shouting at regulators, to step up their game - so that this will not become a thing - that even states cant control.

Because all your romantic views aside - if facebook now gets to pay people in its own currency... worldwide...

And 99% of people in here do the "I would not buy, because I dont trust them" spiel. Thats the real joke. The first thing you all would do is to sell out your grand mother - if somehow transactionfees for something in your daily life got 2% better than now. We are talking money here. Quit the "im so bobo - I'd never" arguments. If this doesnt get stopped - you'll all be talking entirely differently in about a years time.

You'll pay your lattes in facebook money so fast - even you wont realize that it takes nothing to buy out your trust. You can have it for 2 cents. If you believe a transaction will come thorugh - thats all that is needed. Its not that you use the dollar, because you like the old guys on the papery sheets.

Again - the ignorance in this thread alone. Boys - gals. You arent product reviewing this shit. We are talking potentially viable currency scheme here.

 

[FAST6191]

Sure but then you are an idiot. Let me prove that point to you.

- The state you live in usually has the sole power monopole as in "police can come and restrict your freedom" - state also demands taxes to be payed in the states money - controlling exchange rates. Owning worth in a phony baloony spreadshed - is worth nothing. You'll be the most streadsheediest rich person in jail - if you dont resort to "real" money to pay taxes. Which is why currency exchanges are kind of a thing. And even will be in the digital realm. Although the promise is, that they will have less "power" - because people will act on promises alone (accoutn balances) without ever seeing anything that resembles money (that thing to pay taxes in). If you can make people do that. The service you provide is literally zero. Its almost like a magic trick. Believe. And it works.

- 80% used for money laundering is no joke. The only reason that crypto currencies get away with it currently is - that the amount of money within this economies limited. Otherwise feds all over the world would have cracked down on their use - as they did in china. China had a real problem of capital flight related to crypto - where when you are your typical unethical business man, or sweatshop owner, you would extract as much currency as possible out of the country and convert to western currencies - if you expected an economic downturn. Stuff like this becomes real very fast. Which brings us to.

- Circumventing international financial laws, by aiding capital flight.Last bank run potential in greece had the state freeze peoples assets for months, just so money was kept in their economies. Enter a stateless currency the size of what facebook is proposing - and you'll bankrupt entire countries - with mere memes. The potential is there. People are fucking dump. The herd effect is real.

- Crypto based on fiat money (as real currencies, but at least they are backed by "you need to pay taxes in said currency" - so they are demand backed) is exactly responsible for the volatility in the crypto currency markets everybody hates - and that is only dare - so people can scam others. Its designed. Everybody hates it - you love it.

Also its dumb as fuck. Because neckbeard with his "mining PC" certainly is doing nothing of worth - at all. So its just the believe of a believe of worth creation. If enough people believe - worth is higher - if people believe less, the currency tanks. And to be honest - the believe in this constituting worth at all is dumb as fuck. But then most things in life are..

Positive side of fiat is, that you can inflate yourself out of a crisis by printing money. Which is also its negative - if governments "do it too often". That part in current crypto is mostly circumvented by having the mining chances fixed on a slope in the beginning.

Facebook wants to bind its virtual currency to the US Dollar - which is a more promising way of trying to combat volatility - of course depending on the securities you have in your balance sheets. So fiat - with the promise not to act on it.

- Neckbeards proposing, that a computer sucking energy generates wealth is the dumbest shit on earth. It really is. Its useless. Its even harmful.

What made crypto sucessfull though - is to give self proposed nerds a way to seemingly generate worth - by doing something "magical" - which none of them understood. This served the purpose to distribute "stackes" - quite well actually. At least initially. So the money you are getting for your computer doing dumb shit. Is actually the exchange for prepping up the entire system - in a distributed fashion.

If you dont need distributed fashion (faceboom doesnt) - cost of crypto currency becomes much less - because all the effing stuff you do "to trust no one" can be left out. Currently - with crypto not doing jack shit in terms of "mass transactions" - you already have the footprint of minor developed wold countries. Thats the legacy of proof of work.


So everything that you thing sounds like a positive - is a huge, factual and very real issue.

So I'm saying that you are dumb.

And I'm reiterating, that everyone in here thinks about "what would this mean for me" - when the real issue is - what would this mean for certain countries, the financial crisis, economies of trust, setting in stone certain power structures (mastercard, visa, paypal, ... and the california clique).

You guys have no idea, what it means to set this life ans start to scam transaction fees off of billions of transactions every day. They oil barons of the past would be laughable petty thiefs in comparison.

This is the first attempt at a multinational corporate state - and everyone on social media is thinking as far as their smartphone use and their dick.

People are so stupid - it hurts.

One did used to be able to pay taxes in goods and services. Also I can't pay taxes in land ownership deeds, long term savings accounts, my stock portfolio, bonds, jewellery, paintings, futures contracts, unrealised equity in my house/mortgage... or any of the thousand other things that get called financial instruments or have some kind of worth that the tax man, divorce court, bankruptcy court or similar would care about. You need to convert them to regular old money it seems, as you said. Fail to see the difference with crypto.
As far as being worth nothing we have several years now of it being worth something. Volatile financial instruments are a thing even if they are volatile, and plenty of people still seem to manage to make a go of it, not to mention the volatility is not enough that people can't do things on human timelines -- we cash in and cash out within an hour and the same money or near as does not matter will probably be at both ends. Similarly is it not similar to be paid for scale or given shares in a company in exchange for work?
Where do states control exchange rates? With the exception of those currencies which peg rates to the US dollar or something then fixed exchange rates went away decades ago. Taxes have limited scope in whatever positive controls a government might have here, give or take allowing them to buy things or pay people to work on figuring things out that might be dragging it down, and this does not bother tax beyond increased options for return fraud.

Can the feds reasonably crack down on it? China does what it likes but elsewhere it seems to fall under existing laws quite nicely where it matters.

As far as Greece goes then that seems less like a problem with crypto and more bad financial planning by Greece. Why should some government's bad financial decisions affect how I set about life?

So some people have been scammed. Do I also demand my money back from the stock market when my clueless self loses all my money because I decided buy high, sell low or did not have enough to cover a short?

People also believe in most "normal" currencies to have them work. As far as this crypto lark goes I already said it is probably more stable than some island nations. I would similarly contend that computers doing work to back some kind of distributed ledger of transactions can happily be considered a valuable service. You keep calling it dumb but expending resources to achieve work is fairly classic, and assuming we don't just leave physics behind will continue to be so well into the future.

The rest of that appears to be railing against facebook's implementation, which basically every other poster here has already done and is continuing to do. Nobody here wants to give facebook and their mob this kind of power.

 

[Idontknowwhattoputhere]

Facecoin!

 

[Foxi4]

Sure but then you are an idiot. Let me prove that point to you.

- The state you live in usually has the sole power monopole as in "police can come and restrict your freedom" - state also demands taxes to be payed in the states money - controlling exchange rates. Owning worth in a phony baloony spreadshed - is worth nothing. You'll be the most streadsheediest rich person in jail - if you dont resort to "real" money to pay taxes. Which is why currency exchanges are kind of a thing. And even will be in the digital realm. Although the promise is, that they will have less "power" - because people will act on promises alone (account balances), for many of their daily tasks - without ever seeing anything that resembles money (that thing to pay taxes in). If you can make people do that. The service you provide is literally zero. Its almost like a magic trick. Believe. And it works. And if all that you are selling is "believe" - literally anybody can do that. Apple (applepay), Google (Google wallet), Amazon (Amazon paymnet), Paypal (something, something ebay),...Welcome to the corperate store.

And corporation then only interacts with the state (former monopolist of "money") - at the end of a day - to compare balance sheets. All the billion transactions during that day - suddenly are removed from any 'real' economy. They just got privaticed. What has person X done? Facebook cant tell you dear state - we so sorry. Now - how could this ever become an issue? Think. Think hard.

- 80% used for money laundering is no joke. The only reason that crypto currencies get away with it currently is - that the amount of money within these economies is limited. Otherwise feds all over the world would have cracked down on their use - as they did in china. China had a real problem of capital flight related to crypto - where when you are your typical unethical business man, or sweatshop owner, you would extract as much currency as possible out of the country and convert to western currencies - if you expected an economic downturn. Stuff like this becomes real very fast. Which brings us to.

- Circumventing international financial laws, by aiding capital flight.Last bank run potential in greece had the state freeze peoples assets for months, just so money was kept in their economies. Enter a stateless currency the size of what facebook is proposing - and you'll bankrupt entire countries - with mere memes. The potential is there. People are fucking dump. The herd effect is real.

- Crypto based on fiat money (as real currencies, but at least they are backed by "you need to pay taxes in said currency" - so they are demand backed) is exactly responsible for the volatility in the crypto currency markets everybody hates - and that is only there - so people can scam others. Its designed. Everybody hates it - you love it.

Also its dumb as fuck. Because neckbeard with his "mining PC" certainly is doing nothing of worth - at all. So its just the believe of a believe of worth creation. If enough people believe - worth is higher - if people believe less, the currency tanks. And to be honest - the believe in this constituting worth at all is dumb as fuck. But then most things in life are..

Positive side of fiat is, that you can inflate yourself out of a crisis by printing money. Which is also its negative - if governments "do it too often". That part in current crypto is mostly circumvented by having the mining chances fixed on a slope in the beginning.

Facebook wants to bind its virtual currency to the US Dollar - which is a more promising way of trying to combat volatility - of course depending on the securities you have in your balance sheets. So fiat - with the promise not to act on it.

- Neckbeards proposing, that a computer sucking energy generates wealth is the dumbest shit on earth. It really is. Its useless. Its even harmful.

What made crypto sucessfull though - is to give self proposed nerds a way to seemingly generate worth - by doing something "magical" - which none of them understood. This served the purpose to distribute "stakes" - quite well actually. At least initially. So the money you are getting for your computer doing dumb shit. Is actually the exchange for prepping up the entire system - in a distributed fashion.

If you dont need distributed fashion (faceboom doesnt) - cost of crypto currency becomes much less - because all the effing stuff you do "to trust no one" can be left out. Currently - with crypto not doing jack shit in terms of "mass transactions" - you already have the footprint of minor developed wold countries. Thats the legacy of proof of work.


So everything that you think sounds like a positive - is a huge, factual and very real issue.

So I'm saying that you are dumb.

And I'm reiterating, that everyone in here thinks about "what would this mean for me" - when the real issue is - what would this mean for certain countries, the financial crisis, economies of trust, setting in stone certain power structures (mastercard, visa, paypal, ... and the california clique).

You guys have no idea, what it means to set this live ad start to scam transaction fees off of billions of transactions every day. The oil barons of the past would be laughable petty thiefs in comparison.

This is the first attempt at a multinational corporate state - and everyone on social media is thinking as far as their smartphone use and their dick.

People are so stupid - it hurts. You havent even realized, that f.e. frances finace minister rang alarm bells, and all over the world people are shouting at regulators, to step up their game - so that this will not become a thing - that even states cant control.

Because all your romantic views aside - if facebook now gets to pay people in its own currency... worldwide...

And 99% of people in here do the "I would not buy, because I dont trust them" spiel. Thats the real joke. The first thing you all would do is to sell out your grand mother - if somehow transactionfees for something in your daily life got 2% better than now. We are talking money here. Quit the "im so bobo - I'd never" arguments. If this doesnt get stopped - you'll all be talking entirely differently in about a years time.

You'll pay your lattes in facebook money so fast - even you wont realize that it takes nothing to buy out your trust. You can have it for 2 cents. If you believe a transaction will come thorugh - thats all that is needed. Its not that you use the dollar, because you like the old guys on the papery sheets.

Again - the ignorance in this thread alone. Boys - gals. You arent product reviewing this shit. We are talking potentially viable currency scheme here.

First of all, I'd be more careful about who you call a "dumb idiot" and when. Secondly, you can't "print yourself out of an economic crisis" with Bitcoin - you can't magically make more Bitcoin, period, the total amount is pre-set. Once it's all mined, that's it. As for taxation, states existed perfectly fine before the income tax, I will sleep soundly knowing that governments have more trouble chipping at people's labour. There's also no possibility of banks going under and requiring a bail out as it was the case with the financial crisis since in the Bitcoin scenario *you are the bank*, you don't need a corporate entity to store your money. You have the option to use a wallet, but you don't need it to operate in the system. In terms of money laundering, you can't "forge" Bitcoins, and the past transactions the coins were used for are not my concern at all - I don't care. The privacy and untraceability is an advantage, not a detriment. The fact that the government cannot issue or seize the currency is perfect in my book. So yes, all positives from where I'm sitting.

 

[ThatGamingAirman]

So can we mine them? It could be our way of getting back at them. I mean not to be racist or anything but the literal jew sold our personal data for money.

 

[notimp]

First of all, I'd be more careful about who you call a "dumb idiot" and when.

Because you are a moderator.

Then accept responsibility for once, and stop doing the "The view" stuff everybody else is doing of edgy commenting on stuff - based on your feels.

People base their entire opinions on perceived trust structures, which a label like moderator highjacks. If you then want to run your mouth and be all edgy while dismissing any real issues - with whats mounting up to be the first viable, global fake (not state backed) currency in the west - guess what - prepare for people calling you out on having your fun and all - but dont knowing your stuff.

And once more - the mere notion, that all people around here wouldnt use a currency, because they dont trust facebook - in reality gets overruled by acceptance, perceived reliability and ease of use. All the moral stuff people now give out as their reasoning for "I would never" - doesnt count for anything if push comes to shove.

It didn't with the network effect stuff, when it was just about getting granny her grandchildren images, it sure enough will not, when it comes to stuff people could actually draw perceived monetary benefits out of. Its money. If anyone wants to get on the podium and hold freaking "but this isnt moral money" speeches, be prepared to be confronted with the "money isnt moral" statement.

This can be seen in scope, size, and with who is involved - as rolling out "the all digital US dollar". If you would want to do that, you'd do it exactly that way. Thats the conceptual issue you are up against. Not "'i will not use it - because I have trust issues". We know that most people dont. With anything in regards to facebook. They gift them their data for freaking ads in return - and nothing else of value - jsut because its convenient. If they now can get monetary benefits - guess what...

 

[Foxi4]

Because you are a moderator.

Then accept responsibility for once, and stop doing the "The view" stuff everybody else is doing of edgy commenting on stuff - based on your feels.

People base their entire opinions on perceived trust structures, which a label like moderator highjacks. If you then want to run your mouth and be all edgy while dismissing any real issues - with whats mounting up to be the first viable, global fake (not state backed) currency in the west - guess what - prepare for people calling you out on having your fun and all - but dont knowing your stuff.

And once more - the mere notion, that all people around here wouldnt use a currency, because they dont trust facebook - in reality gets overruled by acceptance, perceived reliability and ease of use. All the moral stuff people now give out as their reasoning for "I would never" - doesnt count for anything if push comes to shove.

It didn't with the network effect stuff, when it was just about getting granny her grandchildren images, it sure enough will not, when it comes to stuff people could actually draw perceived monetary benefits out of. Its money. If anyone wants to get on the podium and hold freaking "but this isnt moral money" speeches, be prepared to be confronted with the "money isnt moral" statement.

This can be seen in scope, size, and with who is involved - as rolling out "the all digital US dollar". If you would want to do that, you'd do it exactly that way. Thats the conceptual issue you are up against. Not "'i will not use it - because I have trust issues". We know that most people dont. With anything in regards to facebook. They gift them their data for freaking ads in return - and nothing else of value - jsut because its convenient. If they now can get monetary benefits - guess what...

You're very perceptive. Now, myself and FAST have infinite patience, we don't care what you call us, at least I don't, and with FAST it's a fair assumption, but that's not always a safe bet - something to keep in mind, just as a general rule in life. As for the currency, you have to entertain the idea that some people might have a different point of view than you do. I trust private enterprise infinitely more than I trust the government, Americans seem to agree with me as they entrusted the Dollar to the Federal Reserve banks and *not* the government, specifically to prevent the government from being able to just print money willy-nilly. A self-sustaining crypto currency that cannot be forged, seized or fully traced is an ideal monetary exchange scenario to me, and you're doing yourself a disservice by presenting *advantages* of the system as its flaws. This has nothing to do with "responsibility" and everything to do with a different opinion on how the market should operate. The idea that currency represents some kind of *physical* value is straight from the 18th century, you're effectively proposing the Gold Standard 2: Electric Bugaloo, which is and always has been a flawed concept. Currency has value because we collectively agree that we're going to use it as an abstraction of value based on our own productivity, value is always a matter of agreement, and it's no different with Bitcoin.

 

[Subtle Demise]

If it's easier to obtain than other cryptocurrencies and can be converted into others easily, then I have no issue with it. Buy Libra, exchange it for Bitcoin, tumble the Bitcoin, and it's clean again. Tumbling the Bitcoins probably isn't even necessary as the trail leading the Libra to you ends at the exchange site.

Trying to buy bitcoins with USD is an exercise in frustration. You have to send selfies with your photo ID and write things on a piece of paper like you're being held hostage or something. Send shady looking websites enough information for them to steal your identity. This apparently is due to US law that is meant to prevent money laundering (due to the nature of Bitcoin, this law is futile). If Facebook can bypass this restriction (let's face it, they already have this information), then I don't see an issue with using it as long as you add another layer of security by exchanging and tumbling it.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Sure but then you are an idiot. Let me prove that point to you.

- The state you live in usually has the sole power monopole as in "police can come and restrict your freedom" - state also demands taxes to be payed in the states money - controlling exchange rates. Owning worth in a phony baloony spreadshed - is worth nothing. You'll be the most streadsheediest rich person in jail - if you dont resort to "real" money to pay taxes. Which is why currency exchanges are kind of a thing. And even will be in the digital realm. Although the promise is, that they will have less "power" - because people will act on promises alone (account balances), for many of their daily tasks - without ever seeing anything that resembles money (that thing to pay taxes in). If you can make people do that. The service you provide is literally zero. Its almost like a magic trick. Believe. And it works. And if all that you are selling is "believe" - literally anybody can do that. Apple (applepay), Google (Google wallet), Amazon (Amazon paymnet), Paypal (something, something ebay),...Welcome to the corperate store.

And corporation then only interacts with the state (former monopolist of "money") - at the end of a day - to compare balance sheets. All the billion transactions during that day - suddenly are removed from any 'real' economy. They just got privaticed. What has person X done? Facebook cant tell you dear state - we so sorry. Now - how could this ever become an issue? Think. Think hard.

- 80% used for money laundering is no joke. The only reason that crypto currencies get away with it currently is - that the amount of money within these economies is limited. Otherwise feds all over the world would have cracked down on their use - as they did in china. China had a real problem of capital flight related to crypto - where when you are your typical unethical business man, or sweatshop owner, you would extract as much currency as possible out of the country and convert to western currencies - if you expected an economic downturn. Stuff like this becomes real very fast. Which brings us to.

- Circumventing international financial laws, by aiding capital flight.Last bank run potential in greece had the state freeze peoples assets for months, just so money was kept in their economies. Enter a stateless currency the size of what facebook is proposing - and you'll bankrupt entire countries - with mere memes. The potential is there. People are fucking dump. The herd effect is real.

- Crypto based on fiat money (as real currencies, but at least they are backed by "you need to pay taxes in said currency" - so they are demand backed) is exactly responsible for the volatility in the crypto currency markets everybody hates - and that is only there - so people can scam others. Its designed. Everybody hates it - you love it.

Also its dumb as fuck. Because neckbeard with his "mining PC" certainly is doing nothing of worth - at all. So its just the believe of a believe of worth creation. If enough people believe - worth is higher - if people believe less, the currency tanks. And to be honest - the believe in this constituting worth at all is dumb as fuck. But then most things in life are..

Positive side of fiat is, that you can inflate yourself out of a crisis by printing money. Which is also its negative - if governments "do it too often". That part in current crypto is mostly circumvented by having the mining chances fixed on a slope in the beginning.

Facebook wants to bind its virtual currency to the US Dollar - which is a more promising way of trying to combat volatility - of course depending on the securities you have in your balance sheets. So fiat - with the promise not to act on it.

- Neckbeards proposing, that a computer sucking energy generates wealth is the dumbest shit on earth. It really is. Its useless. Its even harmful.

What made crypto sucessfull though - is to give self proposed nerds a way to seemingly generate worth - by doing something "magical" - which none of them understood. This served the purpose to distribute "stakes" - quite well actually. At least initially. So the money you are getting for your computer doing dumb shit. Is actually the exchange for prepping up the entire system - in a distributed fashion.

If you dont need distributed fashion (faceboom doesnt) - cost of crypto currency becomes much less - because all the effing stuff you do "to trust no one" can be left out. Currently - with crypto not doing jack shit in terms of "mass transactions" - you already have the footprint of minor developed wold countries. Thats the legacy of proof of work.


So everything that you think sounds like a positive - is a huge, factual and very real issue.

So I'm saying that you are dumb.

And I'm reiterating, that everyone in here thinks about "what would this mean for me" - when the real issue is - what would this mean for certain countries, the next financial crisis, economies of trust, setting in stone certain power structures (mastercard, visa, paypal, ... and the california clique).

You guys have no idea, what it means to set this live and start to scam transaction fees off of billions of transactions every day. The oil barons of the past would be laughable petty thiefs in comparison.

This is the first attempt at a multinational corporate state - and everyone on social media is thinking as far as their smartphone use and their dick.

People are so stupid - it hurts. You havent even realized, that f.e. frances finace minister rang alarm bells, and all over the world people are shouting at regulators, to step up their game - so that this will not become a thing - that even states cant control.

Because all your romantic views aside - if facebook now gets to pay people in its own currency... worldwide...

And 99% of people in here do the "I would not buy, because I dont trust them" spiel. Thats the real joke. The first thing you all would do is to sell out your grand mother - if somehow transactionfees for something in your daily life got 2% better than now. We are talking money here. Quit the "im so bobo - I'd never" arguments. If this doesnt get stopped - you'll all be talking entirely differently in about a years time.

You'll pay your lattes in facebook money so fast - even you wont realize that it takes nothing to buy out your trust. You can have it for 2 cents. If you believe a transaction will come thorugh - thats all that is needed. Its not that you use the dollar, because you like the old guys on the papery sheets.

Again - the ignorance in this thread alone. Boys - gals. You arent product reviewing this shit. We are talking potentially viable currency scheme here.

Anything that undermines world governments and Rothschild central banks is a huge plus for me.

 

[Bladexdsl]

they can stick their facebucks up their ass no way in hell are they getting anywhere near my money. fucking face-tards

 

[zeveroth]

My Outlook on crypto is akin to the days of the rail companies in the US. Employees got paid with the company tokens and could only use them at the railroad stores ran by the company. Forever keeping the workers tied down to said company.

 

[FAST6191]

My Outlook on crypto is akin to the days of the rail companies in the US. Employees got paid with the company tokens and could only use them at the railroad stores ran by the company. Forever keeping the workers tied down to said company.

I am not sure why crypto in general would be compared to a company scrip/truck system. Seems to be medium of exchange used by many people of widely varying ideologies and approaches to world, and can be converted to other mediums of exchange, one not overseen by any one company. This facebook crap has some hallmarks of such a system, and if it does not now then I will happily bet on it happening in the short term, but as a general concept then no.

Also video because why not?

 

[notimp]

Anything that undermines world governments and Rothschild central banks is a huge plus for me.

Crazies in the house.

edit More text.

Here are a few things to unterstand. Crypto as a whole - hasnt even reached 1% adoption rate. It - as a scene was filed with fraudsters, soldiers of fortune (in the proverbial sense), 90% of people who could be motivated by buzzwords alone. Even with that abysmal adoption rate - transaction time on bitcoin currently is at one transaction every seven minutes. At an over all market cap of 150 billion USD, which of course is inflated and fluctuating over the year by 150%.

Bitcoin as anything usefull (transaction wise and not speculation) is dead in the water - and has been so in years. The only thing it serves as is an attraction pool for half talented people, to play financial innovation - in a sandbox. If interests to be (by which I dont mean THA YEWS like you apparently do) would be even minorly inconvenienced by BC - it would be outlawed in a second. Its transaction centers would be closed down, and its innovation hubs would be crushed.

Just to get perspectives right.

Furthermore - the "innovation potential" that came out of the commnunity so far (as in after blockchain was out of the box) was slim to none - directly inverse correlated to the infighting, and bickering that destroyed even the potential of successful innovation in the space. Its an almost entirely useless toy.

The Facebook coin is not.

Thats the difference. They are based on venture investment interests, and listed two existing coin exchanges for good will and appearances.

Enter the Libra consortium. The association, to be based in Geneva, will take over from Facebook before the first Libra has been spent, and manage the hard-currency reserves. Facebook has enlisted 28 other prospective founding members out of an envisaged 100, each with equal voting rights and operating a node in a decentralised system which issues coins. They include financial firms (Visa, Stripe), online services (Spotify, Uber), cryptocurrency wallets (Anchorage, Coinbase), venture capitalists (Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures) and charities (Kiva, Mercy Corps)—though, for the time being, no banks. Not a libertarian alternative to the existing financial system, in other words, but a complement.

If thats your "stick it to the man" coalition I'm siding with the established brokers including banks - because at least they can be regulated.

I'll leave a statement from the economist again:

Facebook's new cryptocurrency

Click here to buy Libra
Mark Zuckerberg wants to create a global currency. What could possibly go wrong?

For years Wall Street's magnates have worried that Silicon Valley’s giants will shake up finance. Facebook thinks it has found a way. It will launch a digital currency, the Libra, in 2020. Mark Zuckerberg’s firm has failed before to popularise a payments service. And it is an unlikely guardian of other peoples' money, given its habit of privacy abuses and evasion. But like or loathe the company, its new scheme has legs. The Libra's value will be pegged to a basket of major currencies, it will be able to handle large transaction volumes and 28 other big firms say they will join a consortium backing the currency. If Facebook’s 2.4bn users adopt Libra to shop and transfer money, it could become one of the world’s biggest financial entities. That would herald a consumer revolution—but could also make the financial system less stable and reduce governments' economic sovereignty.

Facebook’s interest is its own survival, since a new financial utility ties in its social-media and chat customers. Still, the digitisation of finance promises to make life easier and cheaper for billions of people. In China, where digital payments are ubiquitous, people transfer money to friends and firms within a chat app for almost nothing. In America 18bn cheques are signed every year. Fees eat up 5% of a typical cross-border transfer. And a threesome of credit-card giants skims about 0.25% from the global transactions they carry, which is worth over $30bn a year.

Many existing efforts to redesign Western finance are unreliable. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have no intrinsic value or central oversight, are vulnerable to fraud and burn up electricity and computing power. Digital-payments systems such as PayPal and Apple Pay piggyback on the debit- and credit-card system rather than undercut it. Facebook’s experiment with payments, launched in 2015, was based on bank debit cards. It flopped.

Libra is designed to avoid these pitfalls. It will be fully backed by a reserve fund which holds mainly government bonds, limiting its volatility. The currency will be administered by an independent body that will oversee a centralised database with an anonymised record of transactions. The system will be open, so that any firm is free to create digital wallets that allow customers to use Libras. Über, Vodafone and Spotify are among the big firms that are keen to be anchor members. A kitty is being built up to offer incentives to shops and merchants to accept Libras.

What's not to like? Mr Zuckerberg’s initiative, which has been cooking in Menlo Park for 18 months, has two problems (see Business section). First, it could disturb the stability of the financial system. America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, has 50m digital clients. Libra could easily have ten times that number. Were every Western depositor to move a tenth of their bank savings into Libras, its reserve fund would be worth over $2trn, making it a big force in bond markets. Banks that suddenly saw lots of deposits leave for Libras would be vulnerable to a panic over their solvency; they would also have to shrink their lending. And the prospect of huge sums flowing across borders will worry emerging countries with a fragile balance of payments.

That is where the second danger comes in: the Libra’s governance. It will be run by a Swiss association, initially controlled by the consortium, a bit like James Bond's nemesis, spectre. It will be independent of Facebook, though the social-media firm will supply lots of Libra users and could end up holding sway. Though Facebook says it is talking to regulators, the assumption seems to be that Libra can ultimately transcend governments and central banks. Facebook also promises that it will safeguard users' data. Caveat emptor.

Mr Zuckerberg used to move fast and break things. This time he is moving slowly and giving advance notice. But that cannot disguise how, though digital money has the potential to change the world for the better, it could also do a lot of harm. Governments let social media run riot. Facebook is about to discover that they will not make the same mistake with money.

src: Economist 22. 06. 2019

 

[FAST6191]

The Facebook coin is not.

Thats the difference. They are based on venture investment interests, and listed two existing coin exchanges for good will and appearances.

Because we have not seen half a hundred altcoins already from tech firms, venture capital firms and more besides (if we are reading economics articles recall about a year ago all those articles wherein it seems if anybody so much as made it appear they were tied to cryptocurrency that their stock price would shoot up, or indeed that iced tea company thing? Most of which are probably trading less than dogecoin at this point, if they even made it (the SEC seemed to manage to take out kodak's efforts here so by extension they either are either fine with bitcoin or toothless)..

 

[H1B1Esquire]

nobody is supposed to be "in charge" of it

This has to happen to show banks they can "control" crypto. If Libra works (and this is literally just a test), banks will start their own crypto.

I guess we could change history and make Libra fail, but ultimately, we'll be calling a hamburger with fries, a burger with fries. D-DV: take one evil or the other, it'll just be semantics.

 

[notimp]

Because we have not seen half a hundred altcoins already from tech firms, venture capital firms and more besides (if we are reading economics articles recall about a year ago all those articles wherein it seems if anybody so much as made it appear they were tied to cryptocurrency that their stock price would shoot up, or indeed that iced tea company thing? Most of which are probably trading less than dogecoin at this point, if they even made it (the SEC seemed to manage to take out kodak's efforts here so by extension they either are either fine with bitcoin or toothless)..

Here is the because from my POV - and also the investors. Because they only have 100 entities that can autheticate a transaction - they can also do it in volume (1000 transactions per second - which still is slower than Mastercard and Visa at currently afair 27k transactions a second, compared to bitcoin at 7 a second.) They are not "proof of work" - they are "authority based".

1. Its not really a cryptocoin. Its crypto to communicate over "eventually 100 nodes - provided by our partners" (certificaition authorities). You could do that over ssl for gods sake - you dont need blockchain for that - blockchain is a marketing ploy - and also something to sell addons on ("your own apps on top of it") - later on. So the play is much more "our own currency" - than "our own crypto currency" (in the sense most people have come to understand stuff like bitcoin).

2. They want to start with 100 nodes (companies, that can do the transaction verification) with 10 mio USD buyin each - giving them a 1bn value stock they want to invest in securities. Buyin afterwards becomes more expensive - the innitial 28 and later 100 companies - then share the investment interests of the getting bigger securities pile at a lower buy in cost at the beginning. Meaning - they start big. They dont start at where other companies would start at. Money (Libra) also isnt "created by doing a stupid thing like mining" - its created when you purchase Libra - and destroyed, when you exchange Libra for a conventional currency again. (If you leave it in Libra - all the intrest payments (for the real money you payed - that now sits in an investment account) go to the initial 28 (and later 100) nodeowners.)

3. Mastercard and Visa on board. While this is essentially taking their business model and tanking it. So eventually they would want to see transaction fees - especially from cross border transactions - its all backed in already - so you got your biggest competition on board - which makes this a play for "the next generational thing".

4. They are freaking facebook. And by that I don't mean worst consumer focused company ever - but rather - if they build in a payment system into their ecosystem - it gets automatic traction. The example that currently makes the round ist that Uber (part of the alliance) would give you a 5% discount if you pay in Libra - just to raise the the worth of the currency (backing securities stock of the money you buy in with - even as an end user). Couple that with Facebook already has your credit card info in many cases - and they WILL find a way to scam you in buying a discounted skin for something or other mid term, or have a facebook friend nudge you into using it, because its more convenient for them - and you have an instant user base of about 2 billion people. If half of those people currently wiring money over western union diverts only 10% of their assents backed in in Western Union to Libra - you suddenly have a new world currency.

And the trick - as always - is going to be to make whatsapp users want to use it to do transactions among friends and for minor work tasks. Again - WeChat model.

If that happens - all of a sudden, transactions in daily life - of entire countries could mostly be done outside of their money systems, which comes with a whole wealth of issues.


So short answer is - never underestimate the network effect. Its the entire differentiator here - and in many other cases.

There arent many companies in the world - that "connect people", essentially remain advertising agencies, but get valued at three times their actual worth (as advertising agencies) on the stock market - because of 'potential' We always thought, that they would make their own plays in the insurance/securities industries (with more insight through data) - but now we know that their ambitions have been higher. They want to coin another world currency.

edit: The "no one is supposed to be in charge of it" aspect isn't true at all. Facebook currently says - that in the executive board they would only have one seat out of 28 at the moment. But that doesnt mean - that companies couldnt form alliances, where in fact one or two companies on the board are calling all the shots, while the rest plays silent majority. Happens all the time.


The "BAD" part is not, that this has facebook attached to the code and board structures. Thats only the cynical part. The BAD part is, that it potentially could be out to undercut governments, cause hyper inflations in local currencies, undermine the importance of central banks (if you think THA YEWS are the problems like fellow posters in here, you cheer here), aid money laundering and so on.




Snippet on the "aid money laundering" part. The more "open for people without a bank account" you want to be - the more money laundering will be an issue. Now - their launch PR spot was full of it - but then they also have Mastercard and Visa on board, which would be diametrically opposed to providing cross boarder money transfer at close to no cost. So we dont know where this is pegged at. In my mind they want the entire world - and not just developing countries and their families abroad. (China and India, which they have said they wont serve (whitepaper, because they outlawed crypto currencies) are more than 25% of that market already. To me they are going for the most of the world enchilada, wanting to be the next thing - just like WeChat is in China.

 

[FAST6191]

I am still not sure why "also isnt "created by doing a stupid thing like mining"" is such a bugbear of yours. If you want to be a goody two shoes and care about Greece being able to stall its own economy while it figures something out and all that other stuff then so be it but mining from where I sit is the least controversial element of it all -- as far as mining goes as best I can it being whale huggers that don't like to see power bills and game players that don't understand supply and demand that have any gripe, everybody else just sees it as providing infrastructure.

The rest of it. If they remain neutral in their provision of services (big ask really) then that would be fine. The lack of neutrality and general cuntishness of those companies named there gives me pause though.

 

[Foxi4]

I am still not sure why "also isnt "created by doing a stupid thing like mining"" is such a bugbear of yours. If you want to be a goody two shoes and care about Greece being able to stall its own economy while it figures something out and all that other stuff then so be it but mining from where I sit is the least controversial element of it all -- as far as mining goes as best I can it being whale huggers that don't like to see power bills and game players that don't understand supply and demand that have any gripe, everybody else just sees it as providing infrastructure.

The rest of it. If they remain neutral in their provision of services (big ask really) then that would be fine. The lack of neutrality and general cuntishness of those companies named there gives me pause though.

The kicker here is that the economy of Greece kicked the bucket because of poor fiscal policy of the government and taking loans with no means of paying them off. As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy that it tanked - I'm only surprised that no heads rolled in the process.

 

[notimp]

I am still not sure why "also isnt "created by doing a stupid thing like mining"" is such a bugbear of yours.

It isn't. I hate Libra - even though it doest do that stuff. I don't hate bitcoin even though it does do it.

If you are only reacting to trigger words by now - I use 'stupid thing' here to shorten the argument thats all. The long form version is as follows.

Bitcoin doesnt scale into anything useful because of proof of work (neckbeards thinking that their computers doing unnecessary calculations = money).

7 transactions per second means - bitcoin is dead for any of the uses you'd want a crypto currency for primarily. Energy consumption as high as entire countries - just for mining - doesnt help either.

If you think about it the whole "its getting exponentially harder to mine" was a ploy not to centralize stakes in the currency too much. First movers had the real advantage, not people wo would consolidate efforts over time. And it worked. But you had years of idiots following a dream - even with stupid investors money - to outchase a fixed exponential curve with processing power. Because they had a dream of "turning on my PC will make me money - look at all the first movers, it worked for them".

The entire thing is so stupid - it hurts.

People that realized how stupid it was had to overcome the "but if we design change that - we loose the libertarian crowd, some of the people that tell the world, that ours is not "less secure", and openly state - that bitcoin wasnt a great design to make it an operational currency. And hurt the perception of the entire market. But by now all trust had formed around the brand - so it was BC or nothing. Everything else flopped even more, because it couldnt get recognition. And by then the entire scene had a percentage of fraudsters and course spikers issue ("Make your own coin!") - that was no joke.

Enter facebook who can combat that with brand recognition of their own.

You don't need "trust no one" in your e-currencies. Facebook will start with 28 authorities and make sure that this number doesnt get too high too quickly. They use Blockchain (with proof of stake (weighted randomness to decide wo can mine the next block)) to make sure that those 28 (expected to get to 100 before launch) are using the same information states - but thats about it.

Their "neckbeard confirmed licenses" are do you have 10m dollars to throw at this? Do you have a computational and net infrastructure network, that can help with distributed transactions? Yes? Welcome to the club. Not "do you have a graphics card".

100 corporations controlling the next world currency (with the ability to eventually establish transaction fees) - isnt that decentralized either if you think about it. Its called "a play by silicon valley interests" for a reason.

How does Facebook try to combat the "not centralize stakes too much" issue? Take a few token NGOs on your board. Wash your hands. Finished. edit: Also they bound their value to the value of: USD, EUR, GBP, JPY and CNY - to entice political actors to wave it through. ( https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/06/18/1560848757000/What-exactly-is-Facebook-s-Libra-Reserve-/ ) That part thankfully didnt work so far. But now it will become a political battle.

 

[DaveLister]

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY IDENTITY ! I have no money left.

 

[FAST6191]

It isn't. I hate Libra - even though it doest do that stuff. I don't hate bitcoin even though it does do it.

If you are only reacting to trigger words by now - I use 'stupid thing' here to shorten the argument thats all. The long form version is as follows.

Bitcoin doesnt scale into anything useful because of proof of work (neckbeards thinking that their computers doing unnecessary calculations = money).

7 transactions per second means - bitcoin is dead for any of the uses you'd want a crypto currency for primarily. Energy consumption as high as entire countries - just for mining - doesnt help either.

If you think about it the whole "its getting exponentially harder to mine" was a ploy not to centralize stakes in the currency too much. First movers had the real advantage, not people wo would consolidate efforts over time. And it worked. But you had years of idiots following a dream - even with stupid investors money - to outchase a fixed exponential curve with processing power. Because they had a dream of "turning on my PC will make me money - look at all the first movers, it worked for them".

The entire thing is so stupid - it hurts.

People that realized how stupid it was had to overcome the "but if we design change that - we loose the libertarian crowd, some of the people that tell the world, that ours is not "less secure", and openly state - that bitcoin wasnt a great design to make it an operational currency. And hurt the perception of the entire market. But by now all trust had formed around the brand - so it was BC or nothing. Everything else flopped even more, because it couldnt get recognition. And by then the entire scene had a percentage of fraudsters and course spikers issue ("Make your own coin!") - that was no joke.

Enter facebook who can combat that with brand recognition of their own.

You don't need "trust no one" in your e-currencies. Facebook will start with 28 authorities and make sure that this number doesnt get too high too quickly. They use Blockchain (with proof of stake (weighted randomness to decide wo can mine the next block)) to make sure that those 28 (expected to get to 100 before launch) are using the same information states - but thats about it.

Their "neckbeard confirmed licenses" are do you have 10m dollars to throw at this? Do you have a computational and net infrastructure network, that can help with distributed transactions? Yes? Welcome to the club. Not "do you have a graphics card".

100 corporations controlling the next world currency (with the ability to eventually establish transaction fees) - isnt that decentralized either if you think about it. Its called "a play by silicon valley interests" for a reason.

How does Facebook try to combat the "not centralize stakes too much" issue? Take a few token NGOs on your board. Wash your hands. Finished. edit: Also they bound their value to the value of: USD, EUR, GBP, JPY and CNY - to entice political actors to wave it through. ( https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/06/18/1560848757000/What-exactly-is-Facebook-s-Libra-Reserve-/ ) That part thankfully didnt work so far. But now it will become a political battle.

"neckbeards thinking that their computers doing unnecessary calculations = money"
Doesn't it? Seems like we both have a nice bunch of examples of it being the case, and a fairly easy to follow line of logic to explain why that makes sense.

So the transaction rate, at least for bitcoin, is not enough to fully supplant more traditional currencies or have real fun with high frequency trading. I was not arguing it should, and from what I can nobody else was either. I still maintain it has its uses though, including transfer of a fairly reasonable range of funds between normal people (with the possible exception of houses, and even then I could still see it between the right parties, then anything most normal people trade in is within range) without too much hassle -- 7 minutes is not enough to chuck something in a box and then go to the postbox/post office and if I am doing remote work for someone I don't much care if I get paid 1 minute from acceptance/handoff or 1 hour, and if it is around $100 or more for an item I am selling in person then someone can sit there (if I am selling a motorbike or something it takes more than 7 minutes to sort the forms out, restaurants and maybe some pubs would also be able to play). So Facebook's new effort potentially has more utility to the man on the street if they somehow manage to copy Wechat's stuff (doubtful -- China was particularly primed for such a thing*), so do any number of other types of asset but we still got crypto. Will Facebook's efforts completely obviate existing crypto? I would argue probably not, even in the ideal scenario, given the likely practicalities of it all (all the companies mentioned thus far, including the credit card companies, have a bad history of not allowing people that don't break the law but offend their rather strange sensibilities to play and I don't particularly see it changing) then even less chance of that. Sadly it probably will become a notable player though.

*between the emergence of the Chinese middle class, the rate of adoption of phones from nothing, the networks for said phones and Chinese society in general it was almost the perfect storm.

Fewer actors but said actors and named and have bigger computing clout is a model not without its perks for certain things, and not without its drawbacks. Potentially anonymous pool from people able to calculate lots of hashes is also not without its perks and advantages. Similarly having a buy in for the bigger actors is something that might add to the list of perks, whether it is entirely necessary though, or indeed we have demonstrable proof that it is not necessary.



That said I was wandering through a town the other week and saw a sign in a tattoo parlour. It said cash or paypal only which might say something. On the other hand I shall be interested to see how such things play out in somewhere like the Netherlands or Germany (technical credit and debit cards are a thing there but if you are more used to UK high street approaches... it will not appear as such), and the generally fairly backwards US (I still saw people signing for card transactions when there a few months back, though conversely they seem to be the ones forging ahead with cashless shops).