Facebook's Calibra Is a Secret Weapon For Monetizing Its New Cryptocurrency (theverge.com) 80
Earlier today, Facebook announced its cryptocurrency "Libra" and the nonprofit association that will oversee it. "But behind Facebook's ambitions to create a quasi-nation state ruled by mostly corporate interests is a secret weapon, one the company hopes it can use to create another platform used by billions of people -- and generate enormous new revenue streams along the way," reports The Verge. "It's called Calibra, and it's a new subsidiary of Facebook the company is launching to build financial services and software on top of the Libra blockchain." From the report: At first blush, Calibra resembles a fairly standard payments company -- but its tight integration with Facebook's enormous user base could give it a significant advantage over any rivals. Thanks to its proximity to the technical development of Libra, and its ability to leverage WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, Calibra could very well become Facebook's next big thing. Calibra's immediate goal is to develop and launch its own digital cryptocurrency wallet, and integrate that wallet into other Facebook products. The company will become a member of the nonprofit Libra Association and have equal voting power the other partners as Facebook's official representative, which include Uber, Lyft, eBay, and PayPal, along with several other tech companies, financial service providers, venture capitalists, and fellow nonprofits. That way, Facebook can say it does not solely control the currency or the network by itself. It also gets the benefit of having twice the representation as other companies, at least for now.
Libra is the technology that underpins the network. But when it launches, Calibra will likely be how most people interact with the currency until competing wallets arise. In fact, it will likely be the first cryptocurrency wallet that hundreds of millions of people will have access to, by nature of being bundled with Facebook's massive ecosystem. With billions of users potentially interacting with Calibra, it will instantaneously have many hundreds of times the user base of the world's most popular existing wallets from Coinbase and others. Kevin Weil, vice president of product at Calibra, says the primary business model isn't to make money off ads targeted using your purchase history or to charge people for using the Calibra app. The real goal, Weil says, is to boost adoption to the point where Libra can have a vibrant financial services economy built on top of it, not just by Facebook but by any other company in the world.
Weil says Libra becoming successful will have all sorts of positive ripple effects for all participants. "You suddenly have billions of new consumers for any online service. Businesses today that operate in cash only, if they have access to a digital currency they have access to advertising platforms, including Facebook," he says. "There are meaningful side effects on Facebook's business if Libra is successful."
Libra is the technology that underpins the network. But when it launches, Calibra will likely be how most people interact with the currency until competing wallets arise. In fact, it will likely be the first cryptocurrency wallet that hundreds of millions of people will have access to, by nature of being bundled with Facebook's massive ecosystem. With billions of users potentially interacting with Calibra, it will instantaneously have many hundreds of times the user base of the world's most popular existing wallets from Coinbase and others. Kevin Weil, vice president of product at Calibra, says the primary business model isn't to make money off ads targeted using your purchase history or to charge people for using the Calibra app. The real goal, Weil says, is to boost adoption to the point where Libra can have a vibrant financial services economy built on top of it, not just by Facebook but by any other company in the world.
Weil says Libra becoming successful will have all sorts of positive ripple effects for all participants. "You suddenly have billions of new consumers for any online service. Businesses today that operate in cash only, if they have access to a digital currency they have access to advertising platforms, including Facebook," he says. "There are meaningful side effects on Facebook's business if Libra is successful."
Re: BREAK IT UP (Score:2)
They just keep track and send you tax forms at the end of the year. Which means Facebook will be needing a current address and phone number on file, along with your social security number.
Nobody uses Facebook anymore, it's too popular (Score:4, Insightful)
In a way it's a good thing that a lot of people have woken up to the abusive arrogance of facebook. Hopefully people won't trust this new thing and it will just fail. Nah... they'll just give you a free cookie and you'll sign up. We're such suckers for "free".
Re: (Score:2)
This will be interesting (Score:2)
I'm always shocked when I learn close friends of mine still use Facebook regularly. So I'll be interested to see how many of them get sucked into this.
Re: (Score:1)
Easy as.. (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Click on random FB cat video
2. Inadvertantly send all your libra "money" stranger with strange scripting powers
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!
Re: (Score:2)
I'll pay you in libra to edit my posts.
"Trendy" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Libra (Score:3)
Which means he is closer to pussy than you will ever be.
s/on top of it/dependent upon it (Score:2)
should be the default wordfilter for these platform announcements and all their generous pledges to implement what amount to perpetual invisible, "permissionless" taxes on internet infrastructure
kleptocurrency is a miracle of self-perpetuating moral hazard hysteria operating on a scale not seen since the days alchemists persuaded princes to fund their transmutation research, except this time the claimed magnum opus is not from base metals into precious ones, but from base motivations into noble causes
Facebook . . . . seriously ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given Facebook's track record with privacy, who the HELL would trust them with financial transaction data of any kind ?
PayPal: No one can possibly f**k this up more than we can.
FB: Hold my beer. . . .
These are, however, quite the mad times we live in so. . . . . I'm sure someone will use it.
Re: (Score:2)
But do those users trust Facebook (Score:1)
Most of my friends are on Facebook, but I'm the only one who's willing to verify my identity or send payments through Facebook. Actually, I really don't trust the payment system.
So, I think the conversion rate is going to be much lower than the Libra investors expect it to be.
Ripple (XRP) on the other hand has banks as the transaction verifiers, and major investors. People will trust Ripple way more than LibraCoin.
Trust Facebook more citizen. (Score:2)
Everyone trusts Facebook, look how great it is, get kicked off or suspended or shadow banned (or all 3) for unknown and or arbitrary, and or subjective reasons because someones feels got hurt.
But now not only can you have your speech curtailed on the platform for unknown subjective reasons, you can now have your ability to save and or spend curtailed based on the whim of someone with feelings that fall over in a light breeze. Not to mention having all your specific and aggregate data sold/licensed/shared t
Re: (Score:2)
You could easily get a job in the 'medical field' as a poster child for some kind of 'didn't take my meds today' program.
Either way dont stop the sperging, its great to have something handy to point to when people ask what happens when a person falls of the far left edge.
Thanks for the continued help.
Just as with Apple (Score:1)
I can see how it's good for the stock.
But not as a product.
But by now Apple iPhones doesn't look bad either considering where Android is.
But yeah, my first and main and true and real Facebook account is forever banned so that kinda make it less likely I'll use their shit product now doesn't it? Owning the stock when a bunch of other idiots use it may be nice though.
Facebook taxes the world (Score:2)
This is just so dangerous.
Next they will demand all countries pay taxes to Facebook.Fuck Zucker, he's too big for his boots.
Reason #1,647,285 (Score:3)
Reason #1,647,285 not to have anything to do with Facebook.
Facebook is evil. Facebook doesn't give a shit about you or your privacy or anything else.
All Facebook cares about is getting money, any way it can. And now they want power to control the financial markets.
Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
Monopolist / Anticompetitive behavior (Score:4, Insightful)
its tight integration with Facebook's enormous user base could give it a significant advantage over any rivals.
Wasn't this literally a major thing the Sherman antitrust laws were about? Monopolist using their domination over one market (Social user networking) in order to usurp another market (Financial Services), (News Media), (Advertising).
If their finance company has any special advantage because of being started by Facebook thus getting an integration and a blessing from FB instead of a Ban (Like Facebook has done with other cryptocurrency-related content in the past that was Not Facebook's), then how is that not an exclusion trust and use of Facebook's Social Media market dominance to try and usurp Financial Services, and create essentially a monopoly of those services on their platform or a Tied Unit?
What ever happened to our precious regulators maintaining control of such forays?
Who the friar tuck trusts facebook? (Score:2)
Money shot (Score:1)
Nation state (Score:2)
... a quasi-nation state ruled by mostly corporate interests
In other words, they already act like any western country.
Total nonsense (Score:2)
This doesn't even make the least bit of sense. ""You suddenly have billions of new consumers for any online service." WTF is he talking about? Who are these billions of new consumers that every online service will be getting? "Businesses today that operate in cash only, if they have access to a digital currency they have access to advertising platforms, including Facebook." I can't even fathom what world this is talking about. There are still businesses that operate only in cash? And if only they had