48 hours after Facebook sends the currency

This seems to make the cheers, ridicule, criticism, warnings, and hotspots of the stakeholders within 48 hours of the carnival, but cannot ignore it.

Two days later, there is only one thing in the currency circle: Facebook has issued coins.

On June 18th, a Libra white paper on Facebook's cryptocurrency was launched on schedule, attracting global attention.

It's not like BAT, AWS, Microsoft, just a BaaS; it's not a To B alliance chain like JPMorgan Chase, but a coin that is distributed on the blockchain and used by C-side users around the world. Although Libra is just a stable currency (like USDT) that anchors a basket of currencies, it is not a highly volatile, consensus-based token like Bitcoin or ETH.

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In other words, Facebook is actually sending money.

Huang Zhen, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, believes that “Libra does not conform to the monetary definition of finance, and is not issued by sovereign countries. It can be said to be cryptocurrency or virtual currency, but not legal tender. It is indeed closer to securities or vouchers, and others. The various tokens and vouchers that are popular in the market are highly consistent and may be more suitable for supervision by the securities sector."

As soon as the matter came out, countless opinion leaders rushed to speak. It was viewed as a cryptocurrency by the regulator, but was considered by the cryptocurrent believers to be not a cryptocurrency at all.

According to the incomplete statistics of the Odaily Planet Daily, there are currently more than 70 opinions and industry insiders who have publicly commented on the incident; public lectures or AMA screens on the domestic currency circle.

After the publication of the white paper, BTG overnight to promote the Libra Chinese community, the next day, the communication community and node road map was launched, planning to become a Libra node, hoping to guarantee a certain discourse for the Chinese language circle in the largest blockchain application market. right.

“The circle of friends and the Internet circle are all in the earthquake.” A BTG employee told the Odaily Planet Daily. "In fact, the biggest pain that day, I came out from the Internet. In the past, I spent two hours and three hours telling him what the blockchain is for? It didn't work. Facebook Libra came out and they all started going. Understanding the technical principles and understanding why this is done is very touching. Although Libra is only EOS+USDT, I think he is more likely to succeed."

Money is money to be a node, and if there is no money, crowdfunding says to be a node together. Some projects that you have never heard of, start to say "preparing" to be a Libra node.

At the same time, there was a project on the Github that forked Libra and copied the Libra code directly, called Libra Classic.

Although Libra is not yet online, there are already exchanges announcing that Libra can be bought. It may be an empty glove white wolf, or it may just be an opportunity to promote the products that buy US stocks in coins.

This seems to be a cheering, ridiculous, critical, warning, and hot spot for stakeholders within 48 hours of the currency revelry, but it cannot be ignored.

Money Circle Surprise: The revolution is coming,

Currency-free blockchain should be closed

When the Libra white paper came out, the loudest was the cheerer.

They are often the proponents of the blockchain and the pass-through economy for a long time. They believe that this is a big positive for the cryptocurrency industry, which will bring more user base to the cryptocurrency and make the bitcoin price soar.

In the eyes of most of the cryptocurrency practitioners, the Internet giant is not allowed to do or will not be a "centralized change" that jeopardizes its monopoly status. However, the Libra white paper made it clear that the underlying infrastructure will transition from a licensing chain to an unlicensed public chain in the future. This means that one day, everyone can become a Libra node, and community governance is also done in a committee.

Gu Yanxi, founder of distributed asset clearing system DAEX (Digital Assets Exchange Group), believes this is a milestone in the development of digital currency.

Meng Yan, who once wrote a long text on the long text of Facebook to discuss Facebook's currency, Meng Yan immediately forwarded the white paper to a circle of friends and commented: "Beyond my thoughts, I said that my whimsical experts in the last two days are happy and unhappy. accident?"

Former Lan Kong Interactive CEO and founder of Mars Finance Wang Feng believes that an open financial revolution is about to emerge, and the non-coin blockchain advocates should go home and review. "Libra's emergence will lead to more trading scenarios. Although it will have a great impact on the market position of existing stable coins such as USDT and even Ethereum, it is likely to lead more than 2 billion people worldwide. To the door to investing in Bitcoin."

Wang Binsheng, a professor of postgraduate degree at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who has participated in many business models and economic model design of tokens, believes that libra is issued based on the principle of blockchain technology. “As long as the characteristics of the blockchain are in place, they must be cross-border and freely circulated. Because Facebook is an Internet giant, this event will be another milestone in the blockchain world.”

He also said, "The transfer of the traditional financial assets of the mainstream society to the virtual world is about to open, which will directly open the mainstream currency exchange channels such as traditional French currency and Bitcoin, and will directly lead to a surge in bitcoin prices in the future. Breaking the Fed model It may be an icebreaker."

Taunting: no innovation,

Essentially the central bank

The arrival of the giants has attracted cheers, but there are also many decentralized believers who satirize Facebook's work in the old world, and have nothing to do with the concepts of centralization and openness.

Most of them belong to Defi (decentralized finance) practitioners.

Defi practitioners advocate the complete decentralization and trust of finance, anchoring assets on the chain. Facebook's Libra, although it is a chain of assets, but the source of credit is the sovereign state behind each anchored asset, as well as its own brand; not to mention KYC, user data is inevitable by local government calls, and in Defi advocates it seems that this is Infringe on user privacy.

Erik Voorhees, CEO of the Swiss digital currency exchange ShapeShift, said: "It is clear that Libra is not a pure cryptocurrency. Don't think that Libra is private and borderless… Libra's stability is supported by a basket of assets, including legal and treasury bonds. In the long run, any cryptocurrency supported by fiat money is weaker than other assets, such as bitcoin or gold. If Libra is against the standard currency, its value will tend to zero for a long time. ”

Pan Chao, head of MakerDao China, which has the largest share of Defi's market share, pointed out this point: “What are the actual assets that support each Libra coin? The actual assets will be a series of low-volatility assets, including stabilization. And the reputable central bank provides cash and government currency securities. "The problem is clear that the white paper authors themselves do not know.

EOS founder and BM bluntly saw little innovation on Libra. “Supporting it with other assets means that when other assets fail, it fails. In fact, this is a new central bank with little innovation.”

Dai Shichao, head of the market for DDEX & Hydro Protocol on the decentralized exchange, said in his personal opinion: "The essence of open finance is to give freedom of trade and financial freedom to every ordinary person. However, KYC+ shares user financial data. The right combination, this combination of punches is equivalent to handing over the private key of my financial information to Facebook and its alliance and even the US government behind it, which has run counter to the original intention of open finance."

Defi practitioners' views are surprisingly consistent. This does not mean that they think Facebook will fail, but rather the grief and lament that it is more likely to succeed.

Just like Daisei’s writing, the so-called decentralization that idealists insist on may be negligible:

"Traditional giants' self-innovation must be based on the maintenance of their inherent interests and expand their boundaries to the digital currency world. Once the giant's tentacles extend, our "grassroots practitioners" insist on trust and license-free. The fundamental characteristics of the "decentralization" of the anti-censorship are likely to become negligible in the face of sovereign ideology and capital interests. ”

Stepping out of the first step and still struggling

Facebook: Being surrounded by global regulations

From a technical point of view, no one is optimistic about Libra, even when the Libra white paper was just released, it was caught in the controversy of copying Bitcoin and Ethereum white papers.

Kong Huawei, director of the Shanghai Branch of the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that Libra's innovation is not technically significant, but rather "poor" than Bitcoin. "It's actually a 71-node coalition chain, which is even weaker than EOS, which is at least a public chain."

Technology is not necessarily the decisive factor of business, just like Tencent founder Ma Huateng commented: "Technology is very mature, it is not difficult, it depends on whether regulation is allowed."

Regulation is indeed the biggest obstacle Libra faces.

Although Libra will not provide services in jurisdictions that ban digital currency, David Marcus, the head of Facebook's cryptocurrency project Libra and former president of PayPal, made it clear that Facebook will never offer private transactions like Monero or Zcash.

After the white paper for the project, local regulators began to encircle Libra.

They are worried that Libra will replace sovereign currency, will be used by terrorism, will grasp and leak user information…

All in all, they fear the decentralized part of Libra and also the part of its centralization.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire believes that governments have the right to "demand some assurance from Facebook", which will make it clear that Libra will not become a competitor to the existing sovereign currency. Stabilizing coins should not be “transferred to the financing of terrorism or any other illegal activity”.

Maire also urged central banks in G7 countries to understand the scope of use of the cryptocurrency Libr. Maire is concerned that Facebook will be able to collect large amounts of user data because all user accounts involved in cryptocurrencies are subject to KYC verification.

Markus Ferber, a member of the German European Parliament, also warned that Facebook could become a “shadow bank” and that this possibility should “sound the alarm for regulators”.

Maxine Waters, chairman of the US House Financial Services Committee, even wants Facebook to stop developing Libra until a project hearing is held.

She said that the cryptocurrency market does not currently have a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protection for investors, consumers and the economy as a whole. So Facebook is required to suspend development. “Considering the company’s past problems, I asked Facebook to agree to suspend the development of cryptocurrency projects until Congress and regulators have the opportunity to check these issues and take action.”

Sherrod Brown, a senior member of the US Senate Banking Committee, is even more radical. He believes that Facebook has used user data in the past, so it is not allowed to "run a risky new cryptocurrency in a Swiss bank account without supervision (Libra tokens will be managed by a Swiss Foundation)."

These countries are not the countries where Libra's initial target users are located. Multi-party analysis believes that the first to be hit by Facebook is the unstable state of some sovereign currency systems; on the contrary, the dominance of currencies such as the US dollar and the Japanese yen in the basket will be enhanced. However, these vocal countries have stronger international voices and are more concerned about Facebook.

In response to warnings from national regulators, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg responded: "The cryptocurrency Libra has a long way to go before it launches." The regulators did have concerns about this and we met. We know that we have a lot of work to do, and the announcement shows that we want to get people involved through a road map and help us do it. ”

The 48 hours after Facebook's currency transfer, from the financial departments of various governments to the blockchain and Internet grassroots practitioners, they can't sit still.

After all, Facebook has done a lot of things that the giants are paying attention to, but they can't do it – hence the “milestone”.

However, as a company with 2.7 billion users and half of the globe, it is doomed to be constrained.

Comprehensive comments on the small blockchain chain Li Feng and the founder of the US group Wang Xing, Facebook must have made a lot of compromises, the industry idealists do not expect too high; it can only pick the softest bones, the bow Just bow down and collude.

History tells us that what can be done is not an ideal martyrs, but a pragmatic politician.

Wen| Aloe King Lu Xiaoming

Produced | Odaily Planet Daily (ID: o-daily)

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