Planned for unveiling next week, Facebook plans to launch a new crypocurrency dubbed 'Libra' in 2020.
Facebook has secured the backing of over a dozen companies for its upcoming Libra cryptocurrency set to be announced next week, The Wall Street Journal reports. These companies include major financial organizations like Visa and Mastercard, and internet darlings like PayPal, Uber, Stripe, and Booking.com. Each will invest around $10 million to fund development of the currency, and will become part of the Libra Association, an independent consortium that will govern the digital coin independently of Facebook.
Backing from major financial entities such as Paypal, Mastercard and VISA is a new twist.
The new cryptocurrency is intended to function as a "stablecoin" to improve stability and make it more attractive to users in developing countries. A stablecoin is
designed to minimize the volatility of the price of the stablecoin, relative to some 'stable' asset or basket of assets. A stablecoin can be pegged to a currency, or to exchange traded commodities (such as precious metals or industrial metals). Stablecoins redeemable in commodities are said to be backed[.]
The plan for Libra is to
[allow] users to send money over Facebook's messaging products like WhatsApp and Messenger, Facebook hopes that its partnerships with e-commerce firms will allow users to spend the currency online. The company is reportedly also looking into developing ATM-like physical terminals for people to convert their money into Libra.
Is privacy considered a social norm in financial dealings?
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Facebook announces Libra cryptocurrency: All you need to know
Facebook has finally revealed the details of its cryptocurrency Libra, which will let you buy things or send money to people with nearly zero fees. You'll pseudonymously buy or cash out your Libra online or at local exchange points like grocery stores, and spend it using interoperable third-party wallet apps or Facebook's own Calibra wallet that will be built into WhatsApp, Messenger, and its own app. Today Facebook released its white paper explaining Libra and its testnet for working out the kinks of its blockchain system before a public launch in the first half of 2020.
Facebook won't fully control Libra, but instead get just a single vote in its governance like other founding members of the Libra Association including Visa, Uber, and Andreessen Horowitz who've invested at least $10 million each into the project's operations. The association will promote the open-sourced Libra blockchain and developer platform with its own Move programming language plus sign up businesses to accept Libra for payment and even give customers discounts or rewards.
Facebook is launching a subsidiary company also called Calibra that handles its crypto dealings and protects users' privacy by never mingling your Libra payments with your Facebook data so it can't be used for ad targeting. Your real identity won't be tied to your publicly visible transactions. But Facebook/Calibra and other founding members of the Libra Association will earn interest on the money users cash in that is held in reserve to keep the value of Libra stable.
Also at Business Insider and The Verge.
See also: Facebook announces new cryptocurrency called Libra - business live
Facebook's Answer to Bitcoin Poses a Double Threat
How Libra Would Work for You
Previously: Facebook Cryptocurrency
Facebook Plans to Launch 'GlobalCoin' Cryptocurrency in 2020
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 15 2019, @02:18AM (5 children)
Even dumb-ass Americans are too smart to touch Facebook-related crap, but developing countries with fresh IMF loans and new Obamaphones will be amped by their newfound vanity, gotten from the Facebook, and that will serve as their gateway drug towards gambling (wittingly or unwittingly) on Zuckerbucks.
Shit, I remember when the business model was to take the heroin from Afghanistan and sell it back to the taxpayers to fund the black projects. Get off my lawn!
(Score: 4, Touché) by krishnoid on Saturday June 15 2019, @02:58AM (1 child)
That's still the business model. They now just call it "the opioid crisis".
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 15 2019, @03:05AM
Well, yeah, we used it against the Chinese, then discovered that everybody including our own liked it during the Vietnam war. The deep state were intelligent enough to wait for a bit until Afghanistan 2003, but filling that gap they had crack cocaine in the '80's.
It makes me wonder how much better Mexico would be as a country should they exterminate the CIA narcos and institute as a nationwide pro-gun policy autodefensas, aka militias.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @09:42AM
Here, hold my beer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @10:12AM
It was take the cocaine from Nicaragua/Colombia and sell it back to the taxpayers to fund the black projects. That one is known to have certainly happened. The analogous trade in Afghan heroin hasn't been so blown, at least not yet.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Sunday June 16 2019, @12:31AM
"Shit, I remember when the business model was to take the heroin from Afghanistan and sell it back to the taxpayers to fund the black projects. Get off my lawn!"
Indeed, I am old enough to remember the original version of that that played out in Vietnam decades earlier ...
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Saturday June 15 2019, @03:13AM (3 children)
Lubera might be a better name.
A long time ago, before shitcoin, I had been, obviously incorrectly, under the impression that it was illegal for entities other than the US government to create currency for use within the USA. What I vaguely recall reading is that during the early days of the US, it was common for states, cities, companies and other entities to print and back their own currency. Things like coupons or store credit could still exist if they were in US dollars.
Anyway, all this bullshit electronic cryptocurrency seems like a return to this marvelous system. Of course the entities that start some new cryptocurrency love it because they CONTROL it (at least to some extent).
You will do all your banking at the First Bank of Facebook but you will have to pay twice the amount for products that don't come from the Facebook store.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday June 15 2019, @03:27AM
People have printed "free drink" coupons and similar forever. There is only one currency, legal tender for all debts private and public in the United States - but anyone of legal age can enter into any kind of contract, such as: present this coupon for one free Margarita between 6pm and 8pm Friday nights. Shitcoin is a little weirder than that, but essentially no different. It's not legal tender, it's just a thing people are willing to trade for it - which then gets into questions of: is it a security like stocks or bonds?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @08:55AM
Should have called it ZuckerBucks.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @02:28PM
Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the power to coin money and regulate the value of foreign currencies, while Section 10 prohibts the States to ”coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; ”. Nothing prohibts a private entity from doing the same except for cases covered by counterfeit (also Section 8) and the fact that they would always need to be converted to legal tender to pay taxes. I am using a pretty basic "medium of exchange" definition of "money" here, in case anyone is confused.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @03:28AM (2 children)
Stablecoin? Isn't volatility one of the features of a cryptocurrency? One of the reasons speculators invest?
If new cryptocurrency is stable then it's not going be the core of anyone's get-rich-quick scheme ... except for the companies who are backing it.
On a side note, none of companies involved understand, let alone champion, anonymity. I'd bet all the stablecoin I have that their "blockchain" is really a "datamine".
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 15 2019, @09:01AM (1 child)
The companies backing it are not interested in making anyone but themselves rich.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @09:57AM
I think that was OP's point.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by petecox on Saturday June 15 2019, @05:46AM (1 child)
Google will reward you with Play credit for surveys, Microsoft will reward you for bing searches, Duolingo will reward you for completing a lesson, etc.
So I'm wondering whether instead of mining, users will be able to generate these Zuckbucks by watching an ad or achieving a level in a game. e.g. watching 200 ads earns you enough points for the equivalent of a 5% discount coupon on their online marketplace.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gtomorrow on Saturday June 15 2019, @08:38AM
Well, there ya go! You just resolved one of the first practical steps to this! [wikipedia.org] Bravo!
(Score: 0, Redundant) by aristarchus on Saturday June 15 2019, @11:47AM
Not Wow.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday June 15 2019, @05:11PM (1 child)
Does anybody remember Flooz [wikipedia.org].
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 15 2019, @05:18PM
Nope. I think there are reasons to believe that Facebook could do better though.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sshelton76 on Saturday June 15 2019, @09:05PM
As in "Crypto In Name Only", there is nothing about this effort which requires these players to utilize cryptocurrency techniques and tools and most likely they won't.
This should probably be called Facebook pay, or Zuckerbucks because unlike a true crypto, you will need a Facebook account to use it or to accept it.
The primary attraction of any real crypto should be in your ability to utilize it without the "permission" of any third party.
SCOTUS has already ruled that Money is speech.
Anyone who tries to control who you exchange money with, is attempting to censor your free speech.
I know tqnext (an exchange we just launched), will not support Zuckerbucks unless and until you do not need a FaceBook account to utilize it.
The really hilarious thing about all of these players dipping their toes in to the tune of millions is that they fail to realize, this is already done. There is already a crypto currency tied to social media and it has a stablecoin component. The token is called steem, the stable coin is called "SBD" or steem backed dollars and you earn them from the social network www.steemit.com
All these guys would have to do is to fork steem on github, they would have a ready to go solution.
(Score: 3, Informative) by progo on Sunday June 16 2019, @04:57AM
So... they're putting a complicated layer on top of Mastercard, pegged to the US Dollar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22 2019, @07:54PM
This is not a privacy concern (FB is not private anyway).
The biggest issue here is: FB (and its backers Visa, Mastercard, Paypal etc) will take your money and give you nothing in return.
Congrats: they have just robbed many banks and have their own.