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Facebook The Almighty Buck China

Facebook Forges Ahead With Libra Despite Some Major Setbacks (fool.com) 44

Posted by EditorDavid from the virtual-money dept.
"Facebook is facing a lot of pushback for Libra, its proposed cryptocurrency, but that's not stopping the social media giant from forging ahead," reports the Motley Fool: Earlier this week, it announced the 21 founding members of its digital token project at the signing of the Libra Association charter in Switzerland. The founding members include Uber, Lyft, Spotify, and PayU, among others... Despite all the odds against it, Facebook is forging ahead, pulling out all the stops to convince the world's skeptics that it is capable of controlling a digital currency that can't be regulated.

Its latest attempt: warning regulators of the impending danger from China if Libra fails. David Marcus, the Facebook executive heading up the Libra initiative, told Bloomberg that China is moving ahead with its own digital payments system, which could have global appeal. That could be a big threat to the U.S. if regulators drag their heels in approving Facebook's digital coin. He painted a picture of an environment five years hence in which a large portion of the world won't have to worry about sanctions from the U.S. because they will have a digital currency waiting in the wings.
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Facebook Forges Ahead With Libra Despite Some Major Setbacks More

Facebook Forges Ahead With Libra Despite Some Major Setbacks

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  • "Auuuuuuuuggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!" -- Zuckerberg
    • That dweeby little sperg of a psychopath, (((Marco Fuckerberg))), is a one trick pony.

      He stole the Winklevoss Twins' ideas for how to set up a Scrotial Media site, and now he's trying to still all their ideas about alternate currencies.

      Maybe the Winklevoss Twins should fake a double suicide of themselves, for just long enough so that (((Fuckerberg))) would off himself in reality.

      Then after his funeral, the Winklevoss Twins could reemerge [youtube.com] and have the last laugh.
  • As unhappy as some countries may be having the USD as global currency, the idea that any real country or oil power will switch to Chinese controlled currency (within 5 years or any time this century) is a ridiculous threat. "You have to give me control of global currency and all knowledge of all transactions (don't worry, you can trust I'll keep it private and not abuse that incredible power in any way because I have such a good track record), or else the eeeeeevvviiillll CHINEEEEEESE!!!!!! will do it!!!
    • And you can trust me because I'm an Israe- er, ah, an American!!

      [/. doesn't seem to support the <s> tag anymore.]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Zuckerberg comes up with some pretty surreal stuff. The biggest fans of bitcoin are rich Chinese citizens who want to get their money out of China under the government's nose. So the Chinese government is going to set up a digital payment system to let anybody move money anywhere? Sure....

      It may also be news to Zuckerberg, but most of the world already has digital payment systems that work quite well. The US does seem to be a bit behind in that regard.

  • Why do we need this? There are already digital currencies out there. From Bitcoin to Dingodollars, the 'you need to look at this seriously before people use something like to avoid sanctions' ship has sailed. If that's the objective, they're about 10 years too late.

    • Because dumb people will buy it.

    • Why do we need this? There are already digital currencies out there.

      And they're all a gamble. You're betting on whether the company that issued them will remain solvent, or if it's a decentralized coin, on what the value will be the longer you hodl. As near as I can tell, Facebook's implementation still has the problem of having to trust that Facebook isn't going to fuck you over in some way. So no, this doesn't fix anything in a meaningful way, and we don't need it.

      Crypto currency won't ever really see widespread use as an actual currency until the Fed starts issuing th

      • Bitcoin isn't issued by any company.
      • No, it doesn't fix anything except for being able to put a buck or 12 in Zuck's pocket somehow. I'd say, look at the fine print in the TOS, there's bound to be a rakeoff there somewhere.
    • Why do we need this?

      Because the Sanhedrin who designed The Plan deign that we must need it.

      Marco Fuckerberg is Plan B just in case Plan A [Sergey Brin + Larry Page] fails at conquering the world.

      Now shut up and be a good little shabbos goy and stop asking pesky impertinent questions like that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      Basically they want to cut out the normal banking/credit card fees or in the case of Facebook insert themselves into transactions. No normal person wants a currency where they need to do math to figure out how much something would cost - see also Microsoft Points [wikipedia.org].

    • There are only a couple of full reserve coins,Tether and Gemini. They are both tied to blockchains with problematic performance and poor institutional stability.

      A blockchain which is only decentralized in theory, but only has vetted servers under centralized control by a semi-trustworthy company gives a stable platform to complement the stable currency. I trust Facebook to live up to their contracts, I also trust them to not give a shit about privacy outside their contractual obligations, I see no reason to

  • ... they need to be enforced. This is illegal, and the government should stop it. Either that, or Congress needs to change the laws to allow for every Tom, Dick, and Harry creating their own money.
    • I'm with you buddy.

    • What law would apply to Libra but not to other cryptocurrencies?

      Unless you mean you want all laws to be used to ban all cryptocurrencies, in which case I agree. Though I would love a low overhead international money transfer alternative to credit card based systems, cryptocurrencies as a whole are just more trouble than they are worth.

  • Facebook has lots of cash and little in the way of enhancing their core competency.

    Reminds me of when Mobil Oil became self-insured and sold insurance, bought retailer Montgomery Ward, built Reston Va from the ground up and went into the real estate business.

    We knew Mobil was a goner when they started panic-selling all that non core competency for pennies on the dollar.

    Libra is a welcome signal that Facebook has topped out. I hope it follows the trajectory of Mobil Oil.

    • I hope it follows MySpace with twitter right behind.

    • I think you might be onto something with that.

    • Facebook will die when/if we abandon social media as we know it, because they are generally incompetent. They aren't really competent to do the stuff they're doing now. It takes them like fifteen round trips to the server just to draw an image popup, when it should literally only take one. When you get any substantial amount of content on the page all the little bits of Javascript add up to make the tab choke hard. But until then, they can keep trucking along because of inertia. People are still paying them

      • Facebook will only die out through litigation.

        Countries are stupid in the short term but wise up after a while.

  • be my guest (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday October 20, 2019 @12:35PM (#59328018)
    We have companies that have proven themselves reliable and honest enough to handle money. These companies are also HIGHLY regulated by state and federal laws, because what they do is so frikkin important. These companies are called banks.

    Facebook is hoping that it can pretend to be a bank while being held to none of their standards. Facebook is neither honest, nor reliable, nor highly regulated. They make their money selling adds and selling their user data, and they sell this stuff to ANYONE with a checkbook. If we allow Facebook to stand up a currency, they will monetize it by selling adds. If we allow Facebook to stand up a currency, they will monetize it by aggregating user data and selling it to anyone with a checkbook. It's what they do. It's why they exist.

    Banks are insured and backed by the fed. Facebook isn't. Banks have to follow strict security laws. Facebook doesn't. If we allow Facebook to stand up a currency, they will be far, FAR sloppier than the banks. In a big way. And when the hacks start coming, the people who lose their money will have zero recourse but to sue Facebook to try and recover something. With Facebook's resources, those lawsuits will take decades. Most victims will die of old age or settle for pennies on the dollar. Or, by then, Facebook will be like GM - just declare bankruptcy, shed the obligation and re-launch with a clean slate.

    Oh, and this crap about Facebook needing to develop a digital payments system before China does? Pure scare-mongering. We already have a digital payments system, and it works quite well. It's run by the banks and credit card companies. I'm solidly middle class, and I barely handle 100 bucks of paper money any given month. The rest? Purely electronic transactions. What FB is talking about is a BLOCKCHAIN-mediated payments system. That's.... highly experimental, to put it mildly. Lots of potential there, but I wouldn't link my bank account to a blockchain system. Take a look at the Bitcoin exchanges to get an idea of what would happen. Not ready for large-scale rollout. Not yet.

    • And of course China has UnionPay, which is their equivalent of Visa/Mastercard; AliPay & WeChat Pay which are their equivalents of Paypal and also widely used for point of sale transactions; as well as the usual bank transfer system.

    • This is not an alternative to banks, it's an alternative to credit cards. Credit cards have proven to be a reliable tool of censorship and enrichment through high overhead ... good at hiding the real costs from the consumer though.

  • >> China is moving ahead with its own digital payments system, which could have global appeal

    Only among the gullible. There are some signs that China's banking sector is an overleveraged, unmitigated disaster.

    • A lot of signs. Their GDP and other financial numbers can't be trusted and even if you believe they're' completely accurate they were already fucked before the tariffs and now are super fucked. For such a face saving loud mouthed country they make a lot of noise the last few months about wanting a deal and everyone should be treated fairly and blah blah blah. The truth of the economic status must be a lot worse than anyone in the West believes or imagines.
      • Keep in mind that the Chinese do business with other people than just the Americans. There's a whole world for them to make deals with. Case in point, when the Americans hit them with the first round of tarriffs, they cancelled all their agricultural import contracts and talked to the Argentinos and Russians to make up the shortfall. It didn't even slow them down. And American agribizz got left holding the bag with unsellable soy and corn. As long as they're willing to cut free of the dollar, they can

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by melted ( 227442 )

          That's not how it works, bud. Reduced exports to one of their main trading partners (the US) and US disengagement from China would throw it back a couple of decades. And because of the severe trade imbalance, they can tolerate this to a much lesser extent than the US can. Trump knows this, and Xi knows this. That's why they're negotiating at all. If they could just replace the US with "Argentina or Russia" as their export market and source of investment, they would. Unfortunately these countries are dirt po

  • Can we buy credit default swaps on Libra? You know, the thing where you can bet on somebody else's thing crashing & burning. A whole lotta stupid rich people gonna get burned if this thing takes off :)
  • "He warned about the prospect of âoehaving a whole part of the world completely blocked from U.S. sanctions and protected from U.S. sanctions and having a new digital reserve currencyâ with no alternative." Isn't this an argument against Facebucks, and not for it?

  • Since when did FB care about public opposition against their actions?

    Or some countries laws. Why should it suddenly matter to them?

  • China or Facebook? Sir can I have a 3rd choice! perhaps put my nuts in a circular saw, surely would be safer than either of those. Shows how delusional Facebook is.
  • sadly i have learned to bet on the evil ceo to make money. so in this case it might ne wise to get some of this Libra. years of seeing ruthless criminal monopolist Bill Gates destroy better technology adversaries in the 1990's who didnt employ his tactics taught me this. if he is a person you would never want to have dinner with then buy his stock or whatever. sadly. so there will probably be immense profit for Facebook with Libra despite everything being wrong with it. that is WHY it will be so p
  • Just curious, what do you all think about cryptocurrencies and everything related. Just been browsing through https://safetrading.today/ [safetrading.today] reading about trading bots and crypto signals and all those things seem to be really interesting.

  • I thought they were going to work with all official instances to make sure there were no more concerns before launching the libra-coin?

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