US House 怼 Facebook: The currency is not "not you can't"

Wang Feng combines the US Senate and House of Representatives. In two days, Fancy Libra hangs around the seven major issues: data privacy, super sovereign currency, regulatory difficulties, anti-money laundering, trust, monopoly, association operating mechanism, Facebook's black history. Once concentrated, it was comparable to the street.

How is it so difficult for social platforms to pay? WeChat has proved the feasibility of this road. David Marcus also defaults to Libra, which owns blockchain genes, in the House of Representatives, and will also compete with Alipay and WeChat payments.

But the problem is that Facebook is no longer a pure social platform. He has long mastered media discourse rights, big data resources, and large-scale online advertising, and can manipulate billions of users.

Although Marcus promised today that “Libra will not compete with sovereign currencies”, some Members are worried that uncontrolled finance threatens social security and “harm will be comparable to 911” (Brad Sherman).

In general, during the two days of criticism and bombing, Marcus's reply was very skillful, and he said “yes” to the sharp question, and he did not promise to stop developing Libra.

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In this regard, many Members have thrown out their heart and ask, "Why is this not something you can do?"

(American House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked "Who controls Libra" at the hearing)

The answer may be that Libra may not be recognized for cryptocurrency, but more like a self-help action by Facebook.

Last year, Facebook suffered the biggest reputation in history, and it was suspected of “stealing” millions of privacy affecting the US election, falling into false news, advertising and passing the door. On average, it encountered a public relations crisis every 12 days.

As users continue to leave, Facebook realizes that advertising revenue-based profit models are difficult to sustain. But this time, instead of choosing a technical service such as BAAS that is easier to comply with, it chose to use the blockchain approach for payment.

Fighting for the era of "digital hegemony"

What is Libra (Libra) in the contradiction? How big is the value? What is the point of hang on the hearings of the two houses?

Knocking on the blackboard: To sum it up, three new, four, and five.

Three new: new cryptocurrency, new Move language, new organization Libra Association

Four: Global influence, cross-border payment ability, giant partners, and subversive central bank plans

Five no: not linked to a single currency, can not be speculative, not anonymous, not completely decentralized, does not guarantee privacy and security

We must admit this: the most heavyweight player in the currency circle is now on the scene.

(Figure from the network, copyright belongs to the original author)

Libra has a huge symbolic significance for the blockchain industry, beginning with a slogan that “builds a simple, borderless currency and financial infrastructure that serves billions of people”. With VISA, ebay and Coinbase, most of the Silicon Valley-based giants have joined the coin circle to “do things”, not only issuing “new cryptocurrencies”, but also creating a consensus mechanism for Move language and Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT). .

From the white paper, the model of traditional cryptocurrency is basically continued. However, according to Andreas Antonopoulos, author of "Proficient Bitcoin", Libra is considered as one of the five major elements of open (open), public (public), neutral (neutral), borderless (non-boundary) and censorship resistance (anti-review). Most of the subject matter regulated by law cannot be realized.

Therefore, Libra is not strictly a cryptocurrency in the strict sense.

But the added value that is neglected is that Libra has the value drivers of network effects, branding, scarcity, computing power, and decentralization that are not available in all current cryptocurrencies. Once Libra becomes another new currency different from tradition. It can almost be seen as an exodus of the concept of "digital currency", and the era of global vying for "digital hegemony" is coming .

On the other hand, Libracoin supports online exchanges, which has led many people to think that they have seen the space for speculation.

The truth is that Libra is a stable currency and does not have investment space. The Libra Association is an entity responsible for managing Libra reserves, controlling the stability and growth of the Libra economy, and Libra will be pledged with a range of low-volatility assets.

The simple understanding is that Libra's price anchors the US dollar. When you exchange Libra for $1, one Libra is produced. When you exchange the French currency, these Libra are destroyed immediately.

Waiting for the Libra to be scattered, wash it and go to bed early.

Libra wants to cover the world

Opponents are characterized as "irrational blindness," while supporters believe in "strategic value."

At present, the most direct value of Libra is the first, explosive, and the popularity of digital currency has increased to a scary level.

Why do you say that, according to the data on Statista, as of the last quarter, Facebook's WhatsApp, Instagram and Messager products reached a staggering 2.7 billion users! More than the combined population of China and the United States. The huge number of users, just the science of digital currency, has already made a huge leap.

The second value is that it provides a model of "world currency." Nearly half of the world's population lives in the shadow of the modern financial system. Imagine Libra relying on the 2.7 billion users in the Facebook ecosystem. In case of success, it will be the first currency to get rid of country restrictions. The people can therefore reduce the insecurity caused by sovereign currency.

Its goal is to "strongly replace the sovereign currencies of those fragile states." The good thing to say is "to help fragile states build better payment systems." If more and more countries in the future pay directly with Libra, the new financial world will be like a wild horse, a world that humans have never had before.

However, Libra also has a value paradox in the overwhelming cheers of "the trough cow X changes the world."

In the report cited by Facebook, half of the adults without bank accounts are concentrated in seven countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.

However… Libra is hard to land in four of them.

Then, Facebook itself is a centralized company. Behind it is a foundation composed of some big nodes. It is difficult to achieve the goal of decentralization. After all, the resources and credit of a single company can hardly support the growth of money. fluidity. For those who don't use Facebook services, it's even less effective. Other industries and institutions are not easy to recognize and accept for competitive reasons.

But at the same time another problem is thrown out, is the blockchain not decentralized? Can a project that cannot be purely decentralized be inherently inadequate?

First of all, Calibra Wallet requires KYC verification for each user (the identity of the client is up to date); secondly, Facebook's own black material is also numerous, not only allowing websites, smartphones and other device manufacturers to get the user's social data, but also privately. The user has deleted the video, scanned the user's photo on the chat client Messager, and used the "super permission" to delete the conversation record between himself and others.

So even if you trust Libra and blockchain technology, it doesn't mean trusting Facebook.

Looking at the regulatory environment facing Facebook is not optimistic. Looking at the world, countries have different policies and protections for finance. Welcome to Facebook's social ecology to take root in the country, not the same as the Libra payment system .

Libra VS WeChat payment

At the hearing, David Marcus will default to competing with Alipay and WeChat payment, fearing that China will seize the opportunity and even threaten national security.

By the way, black China, it seems that it will never be wrong.

It is also social, and the payment path of WeChat, the most powerful international competing product, has come alive.

But Libra has solved the huge potential of cross-border payments, and has already smashed several streets on WeChat.

We only look at the payment problem. In China, where mobile payment has completely exploded, it is nothing new. WeChat is a successful example of “social + payment”, but WeChat is only a self-proclaimed person, and the global users are pitiful. In the end, it is "pay only, not cross-border", but global socialization is Facebook's most important advantage.

Despite the lack of international standards, users are not half of Facebook's total (in the first quarter of this year, WeChat and WeChat combined monthly life accounts reached 1.112 billion), WeChat can penetrate all aspects of Chinese user life, but can second to Facebook slag There is no left. However, if you talk again, all the payments on WeChat still rely on traditional finance, directly use the French currency, and the banking system undertakes the two major businesses of KYC and transfer settlement for WeChat payment.

Therefore, the socialization of WeChat is not so powerful, and it cannot incite the traditional financial model. Libra poses a direct threat to banks.

If the rise of Tencent and Ali represents the transition from “traditional industry to the Internet model”, then Facebook is trying to find a bloody blockchain from the “traditional Internet”. If you can't change your life, you will be revolutionized by others.

But before that, Libra had to deal with its relationship with the United States before it could consider going global, and it would take endless hours, manpower, and even money. Although Marcus was frustrated, the wave of digital currency has come to the forefront.

What will happen in the future is probably that even if you don't wear Libra, you will have other "Gemini", "Virgo", "Aquarius"… instead of it to complete the Jedi counterattack.

Author: Susan Wu

Source: Silicon Valley Secret Agent

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