This is the part where they reveal how they plan to negotiate with regulators:
"At the core, we believe that a network that helps move more cash transactions — where a lot of illicit activities happen — to a digital network that features regulated on and off ramps with proper know-your-customer (KYC) practices, combined with the ability for law enforcement and regulators to conduct their own analysis of on-chain activity, will be a big opportunity to increase the efficacy of financial crimes monitoring and enforcement"
In other words: let us do Libra and we'll help you win the war on cash.
The biggest blow on privacy in the world's history, brought to you buy Facebook.
Not to defend them, but this is exactly what happens to all non cash transactions. Which you kind of have to do to with any sizeable quantity of money (say over 100k) for practical reasons, like theft.
This is exactly how all cryptocurrencies already are allowed to operate. Any domestic crypto exchange has to do KYC, but also cooperate with the IRS. With most cryptocurrencies, transactions are public and traceable.
Otherwise we end up with cash that only outlaws use:
"His total assets were quickly converted to New Yen, a fat sheaf of the old paper currency
that circulated endlessly through the closed circuit of the world's black markets like the
seashells of the Trobriand islanders. It was difficult to transact legitimate business with
cash in the Sprawl; in Japan, it was already illegal."
Hey remember how the press has been pushing for total control of money and transactions? Under the guise of fighting money laundry?
This is what you get. How do you like the "deprecation of cash" now?
Don't worry, the million/billionaires will still put their money on real estate or other places where there are convenient exceptions for it, make no mistake.
I'm asking this in all seriousness. Why would anyone want to use Libra?
Let's say a consumer wants to buy something. They can either pay with "normal" money in one step or they can use their phone to convert their money into Libra and then make the purchase with Libra. Why would they go through the extra step(s)? Am I to believe that the benefit is "lower transaction fees"? Because if so, Libra doesn't have a chance. Only vendors, not customers, see those fees directly. Even if the customers did see them, they aren't big enough to sway the inertia of the way things are.
In the real world, the vast majority cares very little about things like decentralization. They don't care about how the banking system works and who controls the flow of money. They want to swipe their card and get what they want. Anything more than that is just an obstacle. At least BTC has the benefits of pseudo-anonymity and speculative appreciation. Libra has neither.
Beyond all of this, people like to have control over their money. To feel they have control, people need to have understanding. Paper is easy to understand. Cryptocurrency makes people nervous. Facebook REALLY makes people nervous. Put the two together and it will feel like a big risk to users.
I'm an open minded guy, but I don't see it. Someone please enlighten me as to why this won't be Facebook's biggest failure. Why would anyone want to use Libra?
There are millions of people around the world that are unbanked. Especially in 3rd world countries, they get on the internet by buying the cheapest possible smartphone and data with cash. I was just in the Philippines, and I saw places selling access to only Facebook and WhatsApp, in increments of 30MB of data, for cash.
The problem for Facebook is that these people can't buy anything online, because they don't have a bank account. If Libra launches successfully and remains stable, those same places selling X MB of data for cash, could easily start selling Libra too.
That's what so many people here are missing. Facebook isn't targeting this at people who have credit cards, Paypal accounts, and know what Bitcoin is, they're targeting the day laborer in a rural, 3rd world country, who might be enticed to part with some of their spending money for some Chinese plastic trinket that they never could have bought before, because none of the few stores in a 100 mile radius stock stuff like that.
We have an app called mobile pay in Denmark, which I guess is similar to Apple Pay in that you link a credit card and it lets you send money to friends or pay for stuff. It’s owned by our banks and it works most places a credit card wouldn’t, like in small stores that can’t really afford to have a credit card terminal. That’s it’s main uses, sending money to friends or buying things. Only they also have an API for the web, so you can now pay for things you buy in more and more online stores.
I use it a lot. It’s never been easier to collect expenses from board game nights, and when I recently bought the first Harry Potter book (in Danish for my daughter) I didn’t have to enter my credit card information.
I think that’s what Libre will be, only global. I don’t like Facebook, but if they actually succeed at this, they’ll become the easiest way to pay for things on a global scale.
Very easy: convenience, security, and cost. You are right that consumers will care little about the cost aspect, because it is largely hidden from them (even though they pay for it indirectly) but they do care about convenience and security. Online payments are actually not really that convenient. That's why Amazon is so popular because they sort of shield you from having to setup payments with each of the merchants they proxy for you. This convenience comes at a price; Amazon is not a charity and highly profitable.
Copying credit card numbers all over the place is tedious and risky and people are kind of nervous about it for valid reasons. Swiping cards like a caveman is already a thing of the past and also not that safe. There's a huge amount of friction around payments for both users and merchants both online and offline. Even cash has a cost for merchants.
Contact-less payments with cards or phones are rapidly replacing cash payments (more convenient). But of course online you basically still get to copy credit card details around or deal with middle men like paypal or one of the many direct debit systems in many countries.
BTC is nice as a gold alternative and similarly tedious to transact with. It's useless for payments as transactions are extremely slow and rate limited to a ridiculous ~5 transactions per second globally. Price volatility means that it is hard to price things in it because you have to update the prices continuously. Ethereum is useless for the same reasons (in its current form).
Libra will require a bit of selling and educating obviously but actually comes with all the tools needed to make that easy. E.g. micro payments and tipping are very easy to implement on it and you could use that to incentivize users with e.g. bonuses, tiny refunds/rebates, etc. Integrating payments into chat removes a lot of friction for the user. And once there are enough merchants adopting this that incentivize users to use this, adoption could be quite rapid. Having low transaction fees will make this very interesting for merchants.
In the Netherlands (or the EU) banking is sort of changing, we have some Fintech companies moving into the space (bunq, revolut, N26). I'm a customer at bunq and they are a breath of fresh air, I can:
* Have 25 separated accounts or savings goals
* Share any bank account (or savings goal) with anyone (using bunq)
* On the fly couple my passes to any of the accounts
* Use NFC on my Android phone to pay
* Have a website where people can transfer me money coupled to any account
* Make payment request that are (when accepted) in my account in seconds
* Make 5 virtual MasterCard to route online payments to different accounts
* Choose what they do with my savings to generate interest (I have it set to "invest in green companies")
They are mobile first (the app is first class) but they have an API (and an open source desktop client as a result). All this is more expensive than traditional banks (I pay 8 euro a month) but they do not invest in shady things and promise to respect my privacy. I imagine Libra will do the same and more (but for the privacy part). It will be more like an ecosystem.
Not that I want it. I completely agree with all the sentiments here. I chose bunq because they have the same ideology as I do.
Most payment apps are locked to a specific country. If Libra becomes "Alipay except cross-country" then a bunch of tourist-y places in (for example) southeast Asia could start using it to get tourist's money without much of a hassle (especially given how many people are already accepting QR code payments from some local app)
Similarly, cross-border payments in general are a huge PITA and affect enough people that stuff like Transferwise exists. If Libra can help assuage that there's a nice market there.
It might not be a resounding success but it could be enough to sustain an ecosystem.
When vendors see transaction fees, they pass them on to consumers. Sometimes it's in the form of "$X minimum for credit card transaction", other times it's passing the costs though silently, other times it's not accepting cards at all. In the developing worlds, what we consider trivial fees for a vendor to accept are anything but.
Reasons I'm interested, stability and transaction fees. You don't want to pay someone in a deflationary currency, as their salary will always increase. A stable coin solves this in allowing people to actually use it.
The lower fees enable micro transactions which is something that I believe the internet needs in order to move away from ads. I'd happily pay a fraction of a cent per page view, there is no good way to do that right now.
> They don't care about how the banking system works and who controls the flow of money
That's because the person controlling the flow of money hasn't taken enough away from them. History has plenty of examples where a centralized controller went "too far", causing a mass exodus.
This is very hyperbolized, but consumerism and society today is truly reminiscent of a rat inside a cage with infinite sugar water, cocaine, and a steady supply of new mates.
---
As for Libra, what is Facebooks plan? The only way I can see them winding up on top is if they make the "next Bitcoin" where they own like ~10% of the supply, kinda like Satoshi. I don't see Libra working if it's centralized.
Extra step can be very simple: your libra wallet can be auto topped up from credit card.
> Only vendors, not customers, see those fees directly.
A lot of small shops around the world (like one next to my home) do not accept Amex because of higher Amex fees. And require cash if total cost is less then several bucks. Maybe these shops will eventually stop accepting Visa and MasterCard and/or allow libra on even smallest transactions.
> Facebook REALLY makes people nervous.
Are you talking about common people or people who visit HN frequently? I doubt common people really care about their data shared with advertisers. Even I don’t really care.
And again, Facebook will be not the only provider of libra.
> Why would anyone want to use Libra?
To be able to send money to your parents living abroad. To pay on vacation and don’t worry about conversion rates. To be able to send small debts to your friends easily. And so on.
Large parts of the world have no access to banking and can never convert from cash to digital currency. How easily can you transfer money to random individual in random developing countries who might offer their digital labor?
If they are paid in Libra, and can pay in Libra, they become part of the global economy.
Check out FX charts for Russian Ruble, Argentinian Peso, Turkish Lyra or even the British Pound. Then ask yourself which of these countries have financial institutions that allow their clients to seamlessly transact in more stable currencies like US dollar or Euro and you have your answer.
> Am I to believe that the benefit is "lower transaction fees"?
I don't intend to speak to various other merits (or the lack thereof) of Libra, but to this: yes?
Of course! Transaction fees are huge. If you are operating in a razor-margin business, which more and more businesses are these days, then it adds up.
FasTrak, the Bay Area toll processor, charges your card when you drop below a certain balance, and also charges you what they think your average monthly rate will be. Why? To avoid excessive transaction fees on every toll eating into their coffers.
If the only way to buy something is Libra, or if merchants prefer Libra, then folks will be using Libra. Just look at how much market share PayPal has conquered, and they're arguable garbage.
I like to argue that Libra has the potential to become a widespread "mainstream"-like Cryptocurrency. Mainstream is the important factor here.
Sending money internationally takes several days currently and comes with high fees.
If Facebook implements Libra into their platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram etc. this brings less familiar people in contact with Cryptocurrency.
People might start to use it because of way faster international money transfers and (most likely) less fees. I know I will because of that reason.
I wanted to see if there's anything like- 'We are not doing this to see end conversions of our Ads i.e. whether one clicks the Ad and buys the same in the a physical store'.
Like Google did(doing?) with Visa/Master card data.
Closest related statements I could find in the blog,
>while Facebook, Inc. owns and controls Calibra, it won’t see financial data from Calibra
>More commerce means ads will be more effective, and advertisers will buy more of them to grow their businesses.
Libra indeed, is such a huge win for 3rd world countries because cross border payments are way to expensive plus if you're starting a tech startup with hopes of earning from US, or Canada, it's impossible because Stripe, or Paypal are not supported, so they're left out. Libra is great for Startups with global ambitions :)
that's a valid vue from the top of the dollar pyramid, but if your much lower and your local "dollar" doesn't have kind of sway in the world, than this starts making more sense. Look at Venezuela - if the citizens opted in to buy a stable coin (which they can easily do, unlike purchasing physical US dollars, which they can not easily do) than a currency like Libra makes a lot more sense.
everyone seems to think crypto is for the first world, it's not, it's for the third worlds. will it empower the citizens like they claim? i don't know, but they definitely have a more valid use case.
Imagine you live in Zimbabwe in 2008, or Argentina now, where people have no faith in their central banks to responsibly manage their money supply. Then ask yourself what's the value of a portable, anonymous, relatively stable currency that your government can't easily manipulate or confiscate.
I have been following Libra very closely, and have read their white paper twice.
There have been a few good discussions here on HN when it launched [0], but I think most of these have been very biased against anything Facebook-related.
I find the launch of Libra a really interesting "experiment", with potentially big negative or positive consequences for the entire world.
Right now, it's really hard to judge on the technical merits (e.g. the Move language, or the architecture, or how they're going to transition to a truly permissionless and decentralized consensus).
However, I think that it's wise to follow Libra's evolution with attention, as it might, and probably will, have consequences in our lives.
>With Libra, anyone with a $40 smartphone and connectivity will have the ability to securely safeguard their assets, access the world economy, transact at a much lower cost, and over time access a whole range of financial services.
Bad actors will lift old exploitative models into Libra's ecosystem: payday loans with huge interest rates, wallet services that force a deposit and allow you to overspend and charge fees when you do, sign up people for accounts and services that they don't want and make commissions. Or maybe just wallet/business services that straight up scam people and disappear with no repercussions. The thing you set out to kill will just come back with a new flavor. Plus it's even easier now since you can do it all with a single click!
Then someone has to decide what to do with bad actors involved with Libra and allocate resources to actually enforce some actions against them (legislative, the cops, server bans, ISP bans, etc.). Now you've got those services paid by tax dollars dealing with a corporate currency and taking time away from other enforcement actions.
All of this is going to happen at the juicy, vulnerable threshold where the technical controls interface with the human element. I probably won't ever hack Libra/Move itself, but the human part is still there. If I can actually manage to get away with the crime and transact with a fake identity, it can't be reversed.
Bonus: that same $40 phone stops getting updated by a phone carrier and some drive-by malware swipes all of your LibraBucks with a corrupt text message and no one can reverse the transaction. Or maybe that Bloomberg supply-chain attack article will finally become a reality once there's enough economy behind Libra.
If this is widely adopted, it's going to have a pretty steep learning curve and plenty of real losses for everyone.
During the initial stages of the invasion of Afghanistan, the US would pay the ANA, just like everyone else, with cash and checks. However, it was soon discovered that the officers were the ones handing out the money. As could be expected, there was a lot of corruption and grift going on, and the grunts weren't getting their pay. Desertion rates went up by a lot. Eventually, the US figured out that you could pay the soliders in phone credits that they could redeem at 7-11 and the like. That went well for a little while, until the officers confiscated all the phones.
Which, actually, went a lot better. A lot of the common soliders would call up their relatives when they went on patrol or a mission so that their relatives knew to either stay away or come around later. A lot of relatives ended up being in the Taliban. As such, OpSec was a lot easier.
Vice news has a mini-docu on this a few years back, but I can't seem to find it online right now.
Point is, bad actors aren't sitting in cyberspace and aren't without authority. Money that you can't hold in your hands or bury in a tin can is worthless if the system you are in is corrupt. I'll wager that Libra is not going to be well adopted people in corrupt police jurisdictions.
Call me pessimist, but cartelized private global corporations owning and “printing” money can only bring bad things. It is centralized and is controlled by an elite.
My biggest question right now is how many people will want to use Libra enough to pass stringent KYC checks for a wallet like Facebook’s Calibra? You’ll need to give Facebook much more information than they have on a user today, such as photo ID, address, SSN, etc (depending on country).
My cynical view is that Calibra is actually the real value to Facebook here, and they are betting that it will be the biggest wallet by far. It will allow Facebook to reconcile millions if not billions of identities in ways they have not been able to to this date.
> Is this really a blockchain? It’s not open. It’s not decentralized!
> While the initial mechanism by which organizations can run a node and become a member of the Libra Association, is definitely not as open as, say Bitcoin, where anyone can participate in the consensus algorithm, the Libra Blockchain is absolutely designed to be open.
They skip the first question: Libra is not a block chain. It uses Merkel tree accumulators for updating the state of the database, so it's definately not a block chain, it's just marketed as one.
In the case where it succeeds massively as in some of Matt Levine's recent thought experiments, I'm not convinced that Facebook has captured enough of the US regulatory framework for them to turn a blind eye to a new global currency which eventually rivals or overtakes the dollar in usefulness. If we accept, for example, that needing to buy and sell oil in dollars allows for a much more effective sanctioning infrastructure then it seems unlikely they will let a corporate-controlled currency whose ideals don't align explicitly with those of the US get too powerful without a fight.
In the other case, where it just becomes a data-hoarding venmo, but initially for the unbanked global poor, I'm not convinced that a) those people are truly sitting around unable to transact while they wait for Facebook to provide the solution and b) that a payment token which is pegged to a basket of global currencies rather than their own is truly the solution that these people would be seeking.
Now, the (theoretical) implementation makes it look more like it's aimed towards the first scenario, some kind of global-corporatist dystopia which we as a society walk into blindly because it's conveniently available within WhatsApp.
And I don't doubt the value of convenience, nor that there are some very smart people behind this who may have estimated that with the right implementation and dark enough patterns, they can use their market share to break through the latter scenario and into the first. But these are interesting times - I don't expect governments to sit on their hands, and we're not exactly in the midst of a surge in the popularity of globalism right now.
> transition to a truly permissionless and decentralized consensus
The fact that this is something that is supposed to happen at some unspecified point in the future but the "blockchain" they have cannot handle it -- I think its just a lie. It looks like it would require a massively different codebase and hardfork to get to permisionless and decentralized. They are not actually planning on doing it.
Also, the fact that its backed by Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal -- they are the absolute enemies of cryptocurrency.
Real cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum will be able to scale. Ethereum in particular has very advanced plans for rolling out very high scalability in a matter of months. That is what I support.
I do not think it makes sense to use a fake "cryptocurrency" just so that the old companies can continue to get a cut of my transactions and the government can more easily control my money if they want.
My immediate gut reaction to this entire thing (and again, this is only a personal viewpoint not held by others) is along the lines of: What could go wrong with giving one of the most shady corporations on the planet the permission to print its own currency?
Well I can't use Libra, because an algorithm banned me for an obvious joke post and has absolutely nothing in terms of a proper appeals process or accountability. So if I had ever depended on Libra I'd be up shit creek, I guess?
Short of transaction speed and cost, there is so little that is appealing in this compared to Bitcoin, and it has all of the centralisation and compliance pitfalls that a neutral, free (liberty), decentralised money already avoids.
One thing that’s been nice since the Libra announcement is the number of knee-jerk reaction “cryptocurrency is 100% useless and look at this NIST blockchain flow chart hurrr hurrrr” comments have mostly disappeared. It seems like crypto is not totally useless after all, but the biggest threat to humanity ever created... or something...
I like to think of cash as a kind of slack in the system. Yeah there's corrupt stuff going on, but I like its immediacy and utility. A digital currency that is under full surveillance would just cause the whole financial machinery to seize up like a rusted Rube Goldberg.
the moment libra is exchanged for fiat, it is under scrutiny (know your client etc). fbi routinely nails various e-gold enterprises, where clients exchange fiat for tokens and freely transact tokens across the globe. all it takes is to open a couple of libra accounts and send a transaction with "hurt as many americans as possible" in the details. a lot of people were busted for a lot less than that.
imagine high volume small denomination libra transactions between florida and colombia - fb will spend the rest of their days trying to explain to fbi they didn't mean no harm.
> At the core, we believe that a network that helps move more cash transactions — where a lot of illicit activities happen — to a digital network that features regulated on and off ramps with proper know-your-customer (KYC) practices, combined with the ability for law enforcement and regulators to conduct their own analysis of on-chain activity, will be a big opportunity to increase the efficacy of financial crimes monitoring and enforcement.
I wonder how many people in the world can pass a KYC check right this moment.
From the blog: "I wanted to remind everyone that Facebook, through its subsidiary Calibra, is just one of the initial 28 Founding Members that are coming together to form the Libra Association. It’s easy to assume from the headlines that Libra is only associated with Facebook, but that is not the case."
Then why is Facebook the only entity making blog posts about Libra? Except, when you assume the reader is dumb.
[+] [-] Lucadg|6 years ago|reply
"At the core, we believe that a network that helps move more cash transactions — where a lot of illicit activities happen — to a digital network that features regulated on and off ramps with proper know-your-customer (KYC) practices, combined with the ability for law enforcement and regulators to conduct their own analysis of on-chain activity, will be a big opportunity to increase the efficacy of financial crimes monitoring and enforcement"
In other words: let us do Libra and we'll help you win the war on cash.
The biggest blow on privacy in the world's history, brought to you buy Facebook.
[+] [-] sametmax|6 years ago|reply
No cash mean you can't do anything that has not been validated by the state first.
It means kids will have less options to foul around without the parents checking it.
It means you won't be able to pay in a gay bar anonymously.
It means any new (and hence controversial) political concept will have no way to financially grow to acceptance.
It means no living off the grid.
It means hobo will be even more excluded.
It means in case of crisis, the financial system is paralyzed.
It means if powerful people wants something bad for you, you can't be on the run.
It means easy censorship against unpopular activists or artists.
It means no way to test a weird idea off the record to see if it's worth it.
It means no escape if the gov raises taxes in an unjust way.
It means no workaround for paralyzing bureaucracy.
It means no grandpa selling his home grown vegetable at the farmer market on the side.
It means everything you do, where you do, at what time and with whom is tracked, permanently recorded, then passed to algo or AI for analysis.
No grey area. No margin of error.
Just the immovable, inflexible structure of current society imposing itself to everybody.
[+] [-] H8crilA|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gridlockd|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sireat|6 years ago|reply
Otherwise we end up with cash that only outlaws use:
"His total assets were quickly converted to New Yen, a fat sheaf of the old paper currency that circulated endlessly through the closed circuit of the world's black markets like the seashells of the Trobriand islanders. It was difficult to transact legitimate business with cash in the Sprawl; in Japan, it was already illegal."
[+] [-] raverbashing|6 years ago|reply
This is what you get. How do you like the "deprecation of cash" now?
Don't worry, the million/billionaires will still put their money on real estate or other places where there are convenient exceptions for it, make no mistake.
[+] [-] Lucadg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lucadg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IAmGraydon|6 years ago|reply
Let's say a consumer wants to buy something. They can either pay with "normal" money in one step or they can use their phone to convert their money into Libra and then make the purchase with Libra. Why would they go through the extra step(s)? Am I to believe that the benefit is "lower transaction fees"? Because if so, Libra doesn't have a chance. Only vendors, not customers, see those fees directly. Even if the customers did see them, they aren't big enough to sway the inertia of the way things are.
In the real world, the vast majority cares very little about things like decentralization. They don't care about how the banking system works and who controls the flow of money. They want to swipe their card and get what they want. Anything more than that is just an obstacle. At least BTC has the benefits of pseudo-anonymity and speculative appreciation. Libra has neither.
Beyond all of this, people like to have control over their money. To feel they have control, people need to have understanding. Paper is easy to understand. Cryptocurrency makes people nervous. Facebook REALLY makes people nervous. Put the two together and it will feel like a big risk to users.
I'm an open minded guy, but I don't see it. Someone please enlighten me as to why this won't be Facebook's biggest failure. Why would anyone want to use Libra?
[+] [-] spaced-out|6 years ago|reply
The problem for Facebook is that these people can't buy anything online, because they don't have a bank account. If Libra launches successfully and remains stable, those same places selling X MB of data for cash, could easily start selling Libra too.
That's what so many people here are missing. Facebook isn't targeting this at people who have credit cards, Paypal accounts, and know what Bitcoin is, they're targeting the day laborer in a rural, 3rd world country, who might be enticed to part with some of their spending money for some Chinese plastic trinket that they never could have bought before, because none of the few stores in a 100 mile radius stock stuff like that.
[+] [-] moksly|6 years ago|reply
I use it a lot. It’s never been easier to collect expenses from board game nights, and when I recently bought the first Harry Potter book (in Danish for my daughter) I didn’t have to enter my credit card information.
I think that’s what Libre will be, only global. I don’t like Facebook, but if they actually succeed at this, they’ll become the easiest way to pay for things on a global scale.
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|6 years ago|reply
Copying credit card numbers all over the place is tedious and risky and people are kind of nervous about it for valid reasons. Swiping cards like a caveman is already a thing of the past and also not that safe. There's a huge amount of friction around payments for both users and merchants both online and offline. Even cash has a cost for merchants.
Contact-less payments with cards or phones are rapidly replacing cash payments (more convenient). But of course online you basically still get to copy credit card details around or deal with middle men like paypal or one of the many direct debit systems in many countries.
BTC is nice as a gold alternative and similarly tedious to transact with. It's useless for payments as transactions are extremely slow and rate limited to a ridiculous ~5 transactions per second globally. Price volatility means that it is hard to price things in it because you have to update the prices continuously. Ethereum is useless for the same reasons (in its current form).
Libra will require a bit of selling and educating obviously but actually comes with all the tools needed to make that easy. E.g. micro payments and tipping are very easy to implement on it and you could use that to incentivize users with e.g. bonuses, tiny refunds/rebates, etc. Integrating payments into chat removes a lot of friction for the user. And once there are enough merchants adopting this that incentivize users to use this, adoption could be quite rapid. Having low transaction fees will make this very interesting for merchants.
[+] [-] teekert|6 years ago|reply
* Have 25 separated accounts or savings goals
* Share any bank account (or savings goal) with anyone (using bunq)
* On the fly couple my passes to any of the accounts
* Use NFC on my Android phone to pay
* Have a website where people can transfer me money coupled to any account
* Make payment request that are (when accepted) in my account in seconds
* Make 5 virtual MasterCard to route online payments to different accounts
* Choose what they do with my savings to generate interest (I have it set to "invest in green companies")
They are mobile first (the app is first class) but they have an API (and an open source desktop client as a result). All this is more expensive than traditional banks (I pay 8 euro a month) but they do not invest in shady things and promise to respect my privacy. I imagine Libra will do the same and more (but for the privacy part). It will be more like an ecosystem.
Not that I want it. I completely agree with all the sentiments here. I chose bunq because they have the same ideology as I do.
[+] [-] rtpg|6 years ago|reply
Similarly, cross-border payments in general are a huge PITA and affect enough people that stuff like Transferwise exists. If Libra can help assuage that there's a nice market there.
It might not be a resounding success but it could be enough to sustain an ecosystem.
[+] [-] the_watcher|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TACIXAT|6 years ago|reply
The lower fees enable micro transactions which is something that I believe the internet needs in order to move away from ads. I'd happily pay a fraction of a cent per page view, there is no good way to do that right now.
[+] [-] anonytrary|6 years ago|reply
That's because the person controlling the flow of money hasn't taken enough away from them. History has plenty of examples where a centralized controller went "too far", causing a mass exodus.
This is very hyperbolized, but consumerism and society today is truly reminiscent of a rat inside a cage with infinite sugar water, cocaine, and a steady supply of new mates.
---
As for Libra, what is Facebooks plan? The only way I can see them winding up on top is if they make the "next Bitcoin" where they own like ~10% of the supply, kinda like Satoshi. I don't see Libra working if it's centralized.
[+] [-] TomMckenny|6 years ago|reply
Money laundering. You'd no longer need to buy a condo in New York to get your rubles into dollars.
[+] [-] lightgreen|6 years ago|reply
Extra step can be very simple: your libra wallet can be auto topped up from credit card.
> Only vendors, not customers, see those fees directly.
A lot of small shops around the world (like one next to my home) do not accept Amex because of higher Amex fees. And require cash if total cost is less then several bucks. Maybe these shops will eventually stop accepting Visa and MasterCard and/or allow libra on even smallest transactions.
> Facebook REALLY makes people nervous.
Are you talking about common people or people who visit HN frequently? I doubt common people really care about their data shared with advertisers. Even I don’t really care.
And again, Facebook will be not the only provider of libra.
> Why would anyone want to use Libra?
To be able to send money to your parents living abroad. To pay on vacation and don’t worry about conversion rates. To be able to send small debts to your friends easily. And so on.
[+] [-] seventhtiger|6 years ago|reply
If they are paid in Libra, and can pay in Libra, they become part of the global economy.
[+] [-] wickoff|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xyzzy_plugh|6 years ago|reply
I don't intend to speak to various other merits (or the lack thereof) of Libra, but to this: yes?
Of course! Transaction fees are huge. If you are operating in a razor-margin business, which more and more businesses are these days, then it adds up.
FasTrak, the Bay Area toll processor, charges your card when you drop below a certain balance, and also charges you what they think your average monthly rate will be. Why? To avoid excessive transaction fees on every toll eating into their coffers.
If the only way to buy something is Libra, or if merchants prefer Libra, then folks will be using Libra. Just look at how much market share PayPal has conquered, and they're arguable garbage.
If you can substantially beat PayPal, you win.
[+] [-] marc3842h|6 years ago|reply
Sending money internationally takes several days currently and comes with high fees.
If Facebook implements Libra into their platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram etc. this brings less familiar people in contact with Cryptocurrency.
People might start to use it because of way faster international money transfers and (most likely) less fees. I know I will because of that reason.
[+] [-] Abishek_Muthian|6 years ago|reply
Like Google did(doing?) with Visa/Master card data.
Closest related statements I could find in the blog,
>while Facebook, Inc. owns and controls Calibra, it won’t see financial data from Calibra
>More commerce means ads will be more effective, and advertisers will buy more of them to grow their businesses.
[+] [-] gilbertmpanga12|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnmarcus|6 years ago|reply
everyone seems to think crypto is for the first world, it's not, it's for the third worlds. will it empower the citizens like they claim? i don't know, but they definitely have a more valid use case.
[+] [-] foldingmoney|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|6 years ago|reply
There have been a few good discussions here on HN when it launched [0], but I think most of these have been very biased against anything Facebook-related.
I find the launch of Libra a really interesting "experiment", with potentially big negative or positive consequences for the entire world.
Right now, it's really hard to judge on the technical merits (e.g. the Move language, or the architecture, or how they're going to transition to a truly permissionless and decentralized consensus).
However, I think that it's wise to follow Libra's evolution with attention, as it might, and probably will, have consequences in our lives.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210791
[+] [-] 0xDEFC0DE|6 years ago|reply
Bad actors will lift old exploitative models into Libra's ecosystem: payday loans with huge interest rates, wallet services that force a deposit and allow you to overspend and charge fees when you do, sign up people for accounts and services that they don't want and make commissions. Or maybe just wallet/business services that straight up scam people and disappear with no repercussions. The thing you set out to kill will just come back with a new flavor. Plus it's even easier now since you can do it all with a single click!
Then someone has to decide what to do with bad actors involved with Libra and allocate resources to actually enforce some actions against them (legislative, the cops, server bans, ISP bans, etc.). Now you've got those services paid by tax dollars dealing with a corporate currency and taking time away from other enforcement actions.
All of this is going to happen at the juicy, vulnerable threshold where the technical controls interface with the human element. I probably won't ever hack Libra/Move itself, but the human part is still there. If I can actually manage to get away with the crime and transact with a fake identity, it can't be reversed.
Bonus: that same $40 phone stops getting updated by a phone carrier and some drive-by malware swipes all of your LibraBucks with a corrupt text message and no one can reverse the transaction. Or maybe that Bloomberg supply-chain attack article will finally become a reality once there's enough economy behind Libra.
If this is widely adopted, it's going to have a pretty steep learning curve and plenty of real losses for everyone.
[+] [-] Balgair|6 years ago|reply
Which, actually, went a lot better. A lot of the common soliders would call up their relatives when they went on patrol or a mission so that their relatives knew to either stay away or come around later. A lot of relatives ended up being in the Taliban. As such, OpSec was a lot easier.
Vice news has a mini-docu on this a few years back, but I can't seem to find it online right now.
Point is, bad actors aren't sitting in cyberspace and aren't without authority. Money that you can't hold in your hands or bury in a tin can is worthless if the system you are in is corrupt. I'll wager that Libra is not going to be well adopted people in corrupt police jurisdictions.
[+] [-] mromanuk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lanrh1836|6 years ago|reply
My cynical view is that Calibra is actually the real value to Facebook here, and they are betting that it will be the biggest wallet by far. It will allow Facebook to reconcile millions if not billions of identities in ways they have not been able to to this date.
[+] [-] xiphias2|6 years ago|reply
They skip the first question: Libra is not a block chain. It uses Merkel tree accumulators for updating the state of the database, so it's definately not a block chain, it's just marketed as one.
[+] [-] H8crilA|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simplesleeper|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simplesleeper|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jddj|6 years ago|reply
In the case where it succeeds massively as in some of Matt Levine's recent thought experiments, I'm not convinced that Facebook has captured enough of the US regulatory framework for them to turn a blind eye to a new global currency which eventually rivals or overtakes the dollar in usefulness. If we accept, for example, that needing to buy and sell oil in dollars allows for a much more effective sanctioning infrastructure then it seems unlikely they will let a corporate-controlled currency whose ideals don't align explicitly with those of the US get too powerful without a fight.
In the other case, where it just becomes a data-hoarding venmo, but initially for the unbanked global poor, I'm not convinced that a) those people are truly sitting around unable to transact while they wait for Facebook to provide the solution and b) that a payment token which is pegged to a basket of global currencies rather than their own is truly the solution that these people would be seeking.
Now, the (theoretical) implementation makes it look more like it's aimed towards the first scenario, some kind of global-corporatist dystopia which we as a society walk into blindly because it's conveniently available within WhatsApp.
And I don't doubt the value of convenience, nor that there are some very smart people behind this who may have estimated that with the right implementation and dark enough patterns, they can use their market share to break through the latter scenario and into the first. But these are interesting times - I don't expect governments to sit on their hands, and we're not exactly in the midst of a surge in the popularity of globalism right now.
[+] [-] qwertox|6 years ago|reply
It kind of proves that the separation between Facebook and Libra is nothing but a lie.
He just doesn't get it and he never will.
[+] [-] ilaksh|6 years ago|reply
The fact that this is something that is supposed to happen at some unspecified point in the future but the "blockchain" they have cannot handle it -- I think its just a lie. It looks like it would require a massively different codebase and hardfork to get to permisionless and decentralized. They are not actually planning on doing it.
Also, the fact that its backed by Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal -- they are the absolute enemies of cryptocurrency.
Real cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum will be able to scale. Ethereum in particular has very advanced plans for rolling out very high scalability in a matter of months. That is what I support.
I do not think it makes sense to use a fake "cryptocurrency" just so that the old companies can continue to get a cut of my transactions and the government can more easily control my money if they want.
[+] [-] SuperNinjaCat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antihero|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] probe|6 years ago|reply
With the post on.... Facebook.com
[+] [-] hndamien|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seibelj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chicob|6 years ago|reply
I wonder how it is being branded here and whether there will be some kind of confusion, or mandatory differentiation.
[+] [-] tigerlily|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shitgoose|6 years ago|reply
imagine high volume small denomination libra transactions between florida and colombia - fb will spend the rest of their days trying to explain to fbi they didn't mean no harm.
[+] [-] gexla|6 years ago|reply
I wonder how many people in the world can pass a KYC check right this moment.
[+] [-] nobrains|6 years ago|reply
Then why is Facebook the only entity making blog posts about Libra? Except, when you assume the reader is dumb.