Earlier this week Facebook Inc. disclosed the first details of its take on cryptocurrency; Libra. Breathing new life into the cryptocurrency hype-train and forcing companies to reconsider the validity of the the cryptocurrency market, Libra launches next year with the promise of protecting customer information.

Libra will be an alternative to Bitcoin and its many competitors in a market that many consider to be oversaturated. Facebook hopes to use its unique branding to differentiate Libra from the competition; opening the world of cryptocurrency to a much wider base. Those who use Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp will have access to Libra once it launches.

Don’t understand cryptocurrency? Watch this Clickhole video where a man will mumble an explanation at you.​

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In all seriousness, accurately and fully explaining cryptocurrency falls outside the scope of this news piece. For those interested, I highly recommend this Investopedia article explaining Blockchain, the record-keeping technology behind cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Libra.

Source

 

[regnad]

“...with the promise of protecting customer information.”

With the promise of utter lack of self awareness.

 

[Foxi4]

How long until your money is confiscated for 'violating community guidelines'

You say it jokingly, but it's not uncommon to hear of cases where certain individuals get banned by money processors or banks for that reason, PayPal and Chase instantly come to mind. Agree or disagree with someone's politics, but the ability to conduct commerce should be considered a fundamental human right. If I have something to sell and there are people who want to buy it then I should be empowered to do it, and it's none of Mastercard's business. People often equate money to the pieces of paper and metal they carry around, but that's not at all how it works - those are just physical abstracts of money. Currency has gone digital decades ago - nobody cares about dropping a dollar, everybody panics after losing their credit or debit card. Money is just a number on a system somewhere, and restricting the ability to exchange that money is effectively restricting a person's freedom to operate in the world, it's similar to imprisonment. How do you pay for things when you don't have a bank card? How do you get paid? In many countries you can't even find accommodation without a bank account. Crypto was supposed to break the monopoly of the banks by providing an internationally recognised global currency that nobody can control or restrict, this feels like a gigantic step back.

 

[Deleted User]

Breathing new life into the cryptocurrency hype-train

i thought this "hype-train" died in early 2019, is facebook trying to bring it back and make PC hardware cost disgustingly high prices again?

EDIT: or was it early 2018? still, having any sort of hype for cryptocurrency is retarded because it only fucks with consumers

 

[notimp]

Break Facebook up already. I mean what else do you need?

They are following the wechat model for the parts of the world that are stupid enough not to know better - and as stupid goes its the majority.

So now you have the behavioristic modeling, bubble creating, we want no responsibility for anything we show you, except - for when you use facebooks dating side business - we sell your data, to whoever is interested, so fast - you wouldnt be able to keep track, we make you stay at home on voting day - hyper targeted, if someone pays us a cent company of the world - wanting to play payment solution for the developing world - and again - whoever is stupid enough to....

When is enough enough. Fucking network effect.Those kinds of companies only can fail upwards, it seems.

Would you like to have some pictures of your grandchildren with your moneyless purchase of service good with crypto?

When is enough, enough?

Oh yeah, cant wait until everyone around me pays with their phones and facebook accounts - and then still ask - whats and email address, and what could my password have been. Stupid shit. Mixed with hype from moronic finance graduates, mixed with "we want the chinese lifestyle" mixed with the worst company that ever graced earth. Mixed with the network effect.

Tadaaa!

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Oh, btw - its going to be huge.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/06/...ebook-libra-social-media-blockchain-sots.html

- put all the facepalm in the world here -

 

[Gon Freecss]

a cryptocurrency by facebook that protects customer information? what kind of alternate reality is this?

My first thought

 

[CORE]

The arrogance is insane yet most are probably as insane as Zuckerberg for using his Digital Diary Encyclopedia of Everyones Life in the first place never could stand him either.

 

[TangentingTangerines]

Good thing Facebook banned all ads for cryptocurrency from their platform a year ago, only to undo it less than a month before they launch their own brand of it! Can't let those pesky superior competitors getting their names out there, but you also can't look hypocritical when you pull a 180 1 year later.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42881892
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/08/facebook-rolls-back-ban-on-cryptocurrency-ads.html

 

[MiiJack]

Libra...,Le-"bra". We will have bras as cryptocurrency now?

 

[the_randomizer]

Wow, money, who better to trust our money than the inept eggheads at Facebook!

 

[Pipistrele]

As much as I dislike the perversion of cryptocurrency's main selling point, I must admit Facebook will most likely do a better job of making something actually usable, and not just overinflated imaginary money (which is what a lot of cryptocurrencies eventually turned into - even Bitcoin is a pain in the ass to pay with when it comes to basic things)

 

[Taleweaver]

Soon on some e-celebrity's facebook wall:

Anastacia Posh has spent some libra money on silk road. Click here to order a batch of Acapulco Gold.

 

[gamesquest1]

You say it jokingly, but it's not uncommon to hear of cases where certain individuals get banned by money processors or banks for that reason, PayPal and Chase instantly come to mind. Agree or disagree with someone's politics, but the ability to conduct commerce should be considered a fundamental human right. If I have something to sell and there are people who want to buy it then I should be empowered to do it, and it's none of Mastercard's business. People often equate money to the pieces of paper and metal they carry around, but that's not at all how it works - those are just physical abstracts of money. Currency has gone digital decades ago - nobody cares about dropping a dollar, everybody panics after losing their credit or debit card. Money is just a number on a system somewhere, and restricting the ability to exchange that money is effectively restricting a person's freedom to operate in the world, it's similar to imprisonment. How do you pay for things when you don't have a bank card? How do you get paid? In many countries you can't even find accommodation without a bank account. Crypto was supposed to break the monopoly of the banks by providing an internationally recognised global currency that nobody can control or restrict, this feels like a gigantic step back.

yep, i had a friend get over £600 that was going to be held by PayPal for over a year because he sold a modded mega drive for £40, it wasn't modded in terms of pirated games but a 50/60 hz region free mod, all the rest of the money was random eBay sales for clothes and normal stuff, he ended up being allowed to withdraw his money after a couple of months after lots of back and fourth with them and them demanding photocopies of his photo ID and stuff, he was lucky his landlord was somewhat tech savvy and was understanding when he said his PayPal account had been put on hold, its absurd to think these companies can arbitrarily "hold" peoples cash with pretty much zero accountability or room for negotiation with them, if they decide your bad they can simply keep the money on hold indefinitely

personally if a service wants to ban you or put your account on hold they should be obliged to allow you to withdraw whatever you have in there, although personally i think financial services really should be protected with the exception for when the recipient is being sued/prosecuted for something in which case i could accept that if your being charged with piracy for example the government NOT PayPal could hold the money until after the trial for them to determine if the money if the proceeds of crime and use it towards any settlement/fine you receive

same should go for services like steam etc, if they revoke your access to your games i feel like they should be obliged to refund your full original purchase price of any games you bought with them to make sure that they have something to loose for doing so if they decide to completely strip people of their purchases

 

[Bladexdsl]

just when you thought facebook couldn't possible get any worse...

 

[xdarkx]

There is only one thing to do... Time to buy Facebook new cryptocurrency!!

 

[gameboy]

all the most powerful RTX cards at the MicroCenter in my state sold after it got announced... I was looking to buy one too.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

all the radeon 7 cards got sold out the first week awhile back because of crypto too

 

[DinohScene]

Yuck, facebook money.

 

[FAST6191]

Re: "Main selling point is anonymity*"
*or something that can resemble it if you should do it correctly -- people already routinely go through the full ledger tracing paths of transfer to find people, or their more anonymous accounts. There are altcoins that do better here than plain old bitcoin.

I like such things functioning as somewhat akin to cash as far as anonymity goes but I would say the a draw, possibly the bigger one, other than speculation is the lack of transaction fees (though they do now have a fee) and turnaround for transfer (though it is struggling a bit now so times are creeping up).

Re: "main point is limited therefore a better case for it holding value"
The variable nature of things is such that it is good for long term speculation, and can still be used for fairly immediate transactions if you want to cash out immediately. That does however leave long term storage and medium term transfers being tricky if all parties involved are not on the ball. Barring people doing a run on the currency if it is pegged then a pegged currency like this would have its uses.

 

[chaoskagami]

>facebook
>cryptocurrency

How about no.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Libra...,Le-"bra". We will have bras as cryptocurrency now?

Libra = libre = free/freedom.

 

[DarthDub]

I hate cryptocurrencies.