Facebook Launching Libra, Digital Currency w/Visa, MasterCard, eBay, Uber, dozens of others

[atomheartbevo 90109]

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-launch-digital-currency-libra-effort-create-new-payment-system-n1018576

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Facebook is going into the banking business.

The social networking company on Tuesday said it plans to help launch a digital currency in 2020, marking one of the company’s most aggressive moves yet to push beyond digital advertising.

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A new nonprofit group based in Geneva, the Libra Association, will oversee the currency, called Libra. It will initially be backed by Facebook’s expertise but governed by 28 founding partners including payment firms Visa and Mastercard and internet companies eBay, Spotify and Uber.

Facebook said that it wants the currency to be available starting the first half of next year and that it believes many of the 2 billion people who are already on the company’s services will one day regularly use the new currency to buy things or send money internationally.

“The motivation for this is to effectively enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people,” Dante Disparte, head of policy and communications for the Libra Association, told NBC News.

That’s big.  

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

meh

[Sparky 149]

They have proven such a safe harbor for personal data why not have users financial data as well.

[Wally Fairway 5607]

[FondrenRoad 4378]

Amazon would have a better chance at launching a digital currency.  Just switch their gift cards from dollars/euros/pounds/etc to fully convertible and transferrable amazonios.  Get listed on currency exchanges.  Stabilize the currency by price listing in amazonios on all Amazon sites with a flexible local currency price based on exchange rate.  They could even have brick and mortars participate, and could destroy visa/mc by charging fees of less than 1% at local retailers.

Facebook has zero chance of making this work. I spend zero with Facebook right now and I already think I give them too much. 

Amazon is at least an evil empire that offers tangible value in return for your money and soul. 

Edited June 18, 2019 by FondrenRoad

[Blotto 23723]

If facebook is in, count me the fuck out.

[ztejas 43752]

 

[Rougarou 594]

I was just thinking, Facebook probably needs to pivot or else they will be dead in 20 years (Not Facebook the Corp. with it's portfolio like whatsapp and insta and many others, but the legacy social media platform as we know it now). I guess this is as good a way as any?

[Zavala 1384]

I don't think this project will work, but it would be hilarious if Zucc could get a hold of the biggest new crypto currency with centralized control linked directly to your social media profile (your spending habit personality profile). I'm sure they have plans to make sure it's used fairly. 

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13556]

I'm interested and have thrown some money into cryptos, and I don't see this as anything but a positive for the technology. Admittedly I haven't read too many  details about Libra but I don't see this as a threat to bitcoin.  Hopefully the current crypto companies will move faster in producing more real world usage cases.

From what I can tell, Libra could be more of a threat to Venmo or the Cash app.   Or traditional banking.

What I don't understand is how Facebook is going to allow the value to be market-driven or will FB decide the value against each currency.  It's also has the security danger that you're tying your financial transactions to your social profile.  It's a marketer's dream to know not only how you engage with a social media post, they can see your spending behavior later that day, week, and so on.

Overall its an impressive group of backers for Libra. https://libra.org/en-US/association/#founding_members  Time will tell if anything comes out of it. 

[gecko 1104]

With facebooks data security track record...no thanks

[6th Street 6607]

Has potential to disrupt money transfers to people in emerging markets to save the 3-7% remittance fee from western union and money gram.

[RDCanecutter 26561]

I thought Facebook had their own payment program back around 2015? Had some dude pay me that way. Normally wouldn't have been interested in it, but hey, I got paid.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13556]

17 minutes ago, 6th Street said:

Has potential to disrupt money transfers to people in emerging markets to save the 3-7% remittance fee from western union and money gram.

I find it hard to believe that Visa/MC along with the traditional banks will allow this income to disappear.  Perhaps the fees will be lower but I don't see them going to zero.  And to be fair, most if not all of the other cryptos require some level of fee to move the transaction and convert.

People get financially screwed when transferring funds.

[Neonmoon 38130]

I'm not against a digital currency. I mean, it basically already exist. 

But with Facebook controlling?

[6th Street 6607]

5 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I find it hard to believe that Visa/MC along with the traditional banks will allow this income to disappear.  Perhaps the fees will be lower but I don't see them going to zero.  And to be fair, most if not all of the other cryptos require some level of fee to move the transaction and convert.

People get financially screwed when transferring funds.

V and MA are both partners here along with PYPL and others. 

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48 minutes ago, gecko said:

With facebooks data security track record...no thanks

Visa, MC, and PayPal probably have a say in how that’s handled.  

[Nice Guy Eddie 13556]

1 hour ago, 6th Street said:

V and MA are both partners here along with PYPL and others. 

Yes, perhaps I failed to write that down. As they're partners, I don't see them embracing a zero or low transaction fee, replacing their current high fees.

[Zavala 1384]

FaceBucks... could've called it FaceBucks.

what a missed opportunity. 

[Rusty Shackelford 414]

I thought Facebook had their own payment program back around 2015? Had some dude pay me that way. Normally wouldn't have been interested in it, but hey, I got paid.

In what currency were you paid?

[atomheartbevo 90109]

15 hours ago, Rougarou said:

I was just thinking, Facebook probably needs to pivot or else they will be dead in 20 years (Not Facebook the Corp. with it's portfolio like whatsapp and insta and many others, but the legacy social media platform as we know it now). I guess this is as good a way as any?

Shit, they’ll be dead in 5-10 years if they don’t work out new revenue streams - within a year or two, all major browsers are going to be blocking ads from the start, and more importantly, intelligent enough to keep up with changes in advertising.  Companies like FB have got to be scared shitless of that.  

[Dolemite 143]

Congress will likely intervene. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13556]

8 hours ago, Rusty Shackelford said:

In what currency were you paid?

From their basic screen prints, it seems that Libra is showing you local currency instead of libra.  The user is probably given a choice of how to view the amount or perhaps you see both (Libra and local.) Which is smart.  No one wants to calculate exchange rates on the fly in their head.

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13556]

One part of Libra that i can’t understand is that they intend it to be stable against fiat (or govt) currency.  1 Libra =  $1. Or whatever. 2 Libra = $1.   This encourages merchants to accept it since they can be confident of the exchange rate.   But Libra intends to be global.  I don’t see how you can fix a single digital currency to every fiat currency.  If you locked in exchange rates for all, then people would just use Libra to take advantage of real world currency changes.    FB would get killed on the exchange market. 

So presumably they are going to lock it to USD only , and then it uses the global exchange rates to convert it to local currencies. Which makes perfect sense but that means Libra changes daily with Indian rupees or Indonesian rupiah. The Indian merchant will shift their Libra prices daily based on international exchanges rates.   That shirt was 5 Libra this morning but 5.5 now.

 

[RDCanecutter 26561]

12 hours ago, Rusty Shackelford said:

In what currency were you paid?

U.S. Damn Dollars By Gawd.

spoilered for office slaves.

Edited June 19, 2019 by RDCanecutter

[Updawg 2326]

https://www.wired.com/story/ambitious-plan-behind-facebooks-cryptocurrency-libra/

It begins with a new cryptocurrency designed for payments ranging from micropayments to remittances without fees (“as easy to send money as an email”) as well as enabling more exotic “smart money” use cases like dynamic contracts, which could enable blockchain-based loans or insurance. The value of the coin will be pegged to a market-value basket of several trusted currencies, with individual Libras worth about a buck. It’s money, not an investment vehicle. Libras will be fully reserved; basically, every time a user trades traditional currency for Libra, that money will go into the reserve, and stay there until the customer withdraws money from the system.

And here’s Marcus’ big idea: To deflect the well-justified wariness of Facebook’s every move, Facebook has open-sourcedthe technology, and will cede control of the blockchain to a neutral Libra Association—kind of a Switzerland of digital coinage—that will of course be based in Switzerland. The Libra Association will consist at first of up to 100 founding members including Facebook, each of which will invest at least $10 million to fund the association’s operations, and receive interest earned off the reserve. (Libra’s NGO members are exempted from the investment requirement.) Each member will be empowered to operate a node on the blockchain, and have a voice in determining changes to its code and managing the reserve. (This limited access is called a “permissioned” blockchain.) “Facebook will have one seat on the council that oversees the foundation but will have no more rights, no more governance, that isn't the exact same as what everybody else has,” 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13556]

I call BS that Facebook is going to cede control of this coin to the larger group. Does that mean that FB will offer full support no matter what the group decides? Of course not. FB will pull away if they dislike any decision.   

[Vic Mackey 47392]

On 6/18/2019 at 10:48 AM, RDCanecutter said:

I thought Facebook had their own payment program back around 2015? Had some dude pay me that way. Normally wouldn't have been interested in it, but hey, I got paid.

They do. I actually got paid through it last year by someone. Worked seamlessly. It's pretty much just like a Paypal/Venmo transaction. But it seems this announcement is for creating their own currency, which is something totally different.

Facebook/Instagram also now have something where you can buy items instantly that are advertised to you when browsing. My girlfriend did this. You set up your payment information with them somehow and when an item is shown to you, you can click and buy it right then. 

Facebook/Amazon/Google are pretty much trying to take over the world, if they haven't already.

[Zavala 1384]

9 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

One part of Libra that i can’t understand is that they intend it to be stable against fiat (or govt) currency.  1 Libra =  $1. Or whatever. 2 Libra = $1.   This encourages merchants to accept it since they can be confident of the exchange rate.   But Libra intends to be global.  I don’t see how you can fix a single digital currency to every fiat currency.  If you locked in exchange rates for all, then people would just use Libra to take advantage of real world currency changes.    FB would get killed on the exchange market. 

So presumably they are going to lock it to USD only , and then it uses the global exchange rates to convert it to local currencies. Which makes perfect sense but that means Libra changes daily with Indian rupees or Indonesian rupiah. The Indian merchant will shift their Libra prices daily based on international exchanges rates.   That shirt was 5 Libra this morning but 5.5 now.

 

Locking it to anything would be silly. Then they could really get handled by bots and scammers. As it stands now it would be a huge security risk - they let 95 year old grandmas on the platform, you know, the ones that have been asking you to come look at their digital farm? How do you think these digitally illiterate olds are going to do tying their credit card to their faceberg?

Also, it is unclear if it's even a real cryptocurrency. Is there a finite amount that can be mined? Is it truly decentralized 'anonymous cash' like crypto currency was meant to be?

...or is it tied to your facebook acount... you know, the one that tracks every bit of data possible to sell to advertisers...

 

4 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

They do. I actually got paid through it last year by someone. Worked seamlessly. It's pretty much just like a Paypal/Venmo transaction. But it seems this announcement is for creating their own currency, which is something totally different.

Facebook/Instagram also now have something where you can buy items instantly that are advertised to you when browsing. My girlfriend did this. You set up your payment information with them somehow and when an item is shown to you, you can click and buy it right then. 

Facebook/Amazon/Google are pretty much trying to take over the world, if they haven't already.

All they have to do to get people to switch to Libra is to sell products online cheaper in Libras then cash. They can afford to do this for the simple fee of linking your online activity directly to your spending habits. Then, if you break their terms of service by posting something they don't want on their site, you also lose your Libra privileges and have to go back to using plain old dollars - everything online is now 5% more expensive for you..

When do I sign up for my forehead libra chip implant?

https://libra.org/en-US/about-currency-reserve/#the_reserve

[TexArcher 38434]

This is horrible, this idea.

[F250 28959]

I am interested in playing the exchange with Libra but I've been gun shy ever since the crash of WoW gold back in 2011.

 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

54 minutes ago, Zavala said:

Locking it to anything would be silly. Then they could really get handled by bots and scammers. As it stands now it would be a huge security risk - they let 95 year old grandmas on the platform, you know, the ones that have been asking you to come look at their digital farm? How do you think these digitally illiterate olds are going to do tying their credit card to their faceberg?

Also, it is unclear if it's even a real cryptocurrency. Is there a finite amount that can be mined? Is it truly decentralized 'anonymous cash' like crypto currency was meant to be?

...or is it tied to your facebook acount... you know, the one that tracks every bit of data possible to sell to advertisers...

 

All they have to do to get people to switch to Libra is to sell products online cheaper in Libras then cash. They can afford to do this for the simple fee of linking your online activity directly to your spending habits. Then, if you break their terms of service by posting something they don't want on their site, you also lose your Libra privileges and have to go back to using plain old dollars - everything online is now 5% more expensive for you..

When do I sign up for my forehead libra chip implant?

https://libra.org/en-US/about-currency-reserve/#the_reserve

Sign up?  You think you're getting a choice?  They already put the nanites in the drinking water and vaccines. All they have to do is activate them.