You’re not a nuisance, and I guess we will have to agree to disagree; and I think I understand exactly what Libra is. Libra is a merely a fiat dollar extension, not a true cryptocurrency (basically the same relationship as a traveler’s cheque to a fiat currency - the denomination is the same), and Bitcoin, Ether, Monero, etc. are independent of fiat currencies.
Here is the Libra’s white paper https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/
In essence, Libra is made up by 3 parts:
- It is built on a secure, scalable, and reliable blockchain;
- It is backed by a reserve of assets designed to give it intrinsic value;
- It is governed by the independent Libra Association tasked with evolving the ecosystem.
However, Libra’s success is of course far from assured, it could be a flop!
And the reserve of assets will be a basket of fiat currencies, and US Treasuries, which is designed to give it the stability Bitcoin and other cryptos lack, but this in essence just makes it another fiat monetary tool. It may give illusory stability at first, but in the end, it may well be its undoing, becuase the Western financial system is drowning in debt and most countries are essentially bankrupt on a mark to market basis.
Apart from that, I would not trust Mark Zuckerberg as far as I can throw the Brooklyn Bridge.
Yep, nothing could be taken for granted, and nobody could be trusted.
However, a consortium based in Switzerland would be more reliable, I think.
I’m still here. Watching the cycle of fleecing the “rubes” repeat itself. It would funny if not for the environmental destruction being wrought to power the computers that are busy arranging 1s and 0s into inherently worthless codes.
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No more worthless than the 1s and 0s at the Federal Reserve.The only thing that gives their 1s and 0s worth is a bunch of dudes with firearms.
Disclaimer - I have a negligible sum in Bitcoin - if it goes to 100K as measured in Federal Reserve Notes it would make zero impact on my life. Ditto if it went tits up. I just decided to get a fraction of a coin after it melted down last time to see what all the fuss was about.
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The 1s and 0s that denote our bank account have proven to be worth something thus far. Similar to the 1s and 0s that assign ownership of our investments. We’re effectively “short” cash, with our mortgage being greater than our cash savings, so a collapse in the value of the dollar would suit us. If the collapse is so severe that all the other systems fail and we can no longer claim ownership of our assets, then I doubt Bitcoin would help much there.
Well, barring nuclear Armageddon (always an option with the stupidity of the human race) people will find a means to transact business.
Dollar devaluation will wipe out the US economy - yes it would make their debt serviceable, but all those borrowed dollars would come flooding back home, because the US’ main export is dollar denominated debt. I don’t think currency destruction has ever been shown to be a good thing for an economy.
It may be Bitcoin, or some other cryptocurrency, gold will certainly be a store of value (central banks constantly denigrate it, but across the board they are acquiring it hand over fist in the past several years), and as I mentioned, SDRs will be there for the Big Boys.
I don’t know if Bitcoin will amount to anything, but it seems rejecting it out of hand is similar to ancient people mocking coins because “we’ve always used seashells and barter.” As technology becomes more Orwellian (and for that matter, Kafkaesque) there is no reason to believe mankind’s system of money won’t evolve. Especially since the current “Masters of the Universe” in finance have done such an absolutely shitty job with the current system. Well, perhaps not so shitty - it has served the global elites/1% very well…essentially serving in large measure as a form of neo-feudalism.
GBTC (Greyscale BitCoin Trust) 52W L 3.66 52W H 16.49, a jump of more than 500 %, Wow!
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More on Libra:
" Bitcoin is attractive because it’s a decentralized, borderless, open, tamperproof, censorship-resistant currency. Libra is none of those things.
Facebook wants a bunch of big corporations to run Libra by way of the “Libra Association.” The group will be based here in Switzerland. And its members already include Uber, Lyft, Visa, Mastercard, and Vodafone.
Using a Swiss foundation with a few other huge corporations as the controlling institution for Libra doesn’t make it decentralized. Despite all of Facebook’s hype, it’s just a different version of a bank account or a mobile payment app, such as PayPal or Venmo.
Also, Facebook says its Libra digital wallet – which will be called Calibra – will monitor accounts for “unusual behavior.” So your funds are completely at the mercy of Facebook and its corporate partners."
That is why I would not be interested, and why it is really a “faux” cryptocurrency.
Libra has the potential to change the world for the better, but it could also do a lot of harm. Facebook has made multiple mistakes before with privacy, fake news, Cambridge Analytica, they must not make the same mistake with money.
However, I do not agree that Libra is faux money.
I didn’t say it was faux money, I said it is faux crypto. It is just a dollar extension payment app that uses blockchain technology, but it is under corporate control. It will be subject to dollar effects and the central banks.
Apart from that, FB has proven to be a wholly untrustworthy endeavor, both from mistakes, as well as by design. I deleted my account years ago and will never be back. I refuse to be monetized as much as I can avoid (I realize it is impossible to do 100% if one uses the web at all), because FB’s product isn’t a social media platform, it is the people that use it.
I don’t see what makes that a faux cryptocurrency. It might not meet your idea of an ideal cryptocurrency, but it still uses strong cryptography for transactions and currency creation as well as a distributed ledger using blockchain… to me, and I have been fascinated with these things since they started many years ago, that is a cryptocurrency… it’s just it has a controlled/fixed centralised banking system monetary exchange rate … well that is nothing to do with whether it is technically a crypto currency or not in my view.
Also as someone who is responsible in part in creating such things, in my world a product is a platform that provides services, such as Facebook, and the users typically consume those services offered by that platform. The users are not the platform, but they use the social media platform to create and consume ‘socialised’ media.
I am sure from the tech side, and you are clearly one of the “techiest” people here, it ticks all the boxes. From the technology side, it is using the blockchain, etc - but the concept of a true cryptocurrency was to divorce itself from the fiat money system and fractional reserve/central banking system, and in this regard it gets a grade of “F”. As the blurb I quoted indicated, it seems more apt to compare it to PayPal than anything else in terms of monetary function. Blockchain Paypal. Some may see this as semantics, but I think it goes to the very heart of why cryptocurrencies were created because the blockchain will and does have many other uses past cryptocurrency.
As for FB, the main revenue generation is selling peoples’/users’ data to the highest bidder. That is why I say the people who use it are the product. The social media platform itself is just a data collection tool.
Some interesting points, however I don’t believe Paypal uses a distributed ledger, which to my mind is a key aspect of a crypto currency… but in terms of pegged to a currency, then yes it is, along with Apple Pay, Google Pay etc etc
Which no sane or savvy person is saying to do - of course, there is a risk, just like anything, including fiat currencies. I have a friend who is going into crypto with “rent money,” and I have told him I think he is a damned fool.
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