Whitepaper Deep Dive — Move: Facebook Libra Blockchain’s New Programming Language
Key characteristics of Move and How it differentiates with Ethereum from a developer’s perspective...
What are the odds Facebook's Libra launches on time?
“Ten years after Bitcoin began operating, we are still trying to understand it and regulators have not figured out what to do about it,” said Angela Walch. “In the end, Facebook and Libra are entering the high-stakes domain of money and finance—they should expect to carry a heavy regulatory burden just as others operating in this space do.”
Japanese financial services giant Monex submits application to join Facebook’s Libra
Monex Group, the Japan-based online brokerage firm that also owns cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, has submitted an application to join Facebook’s Libra project.
Do stablecoins like libra differ from other crypto assets
MIT Fellow Says Facebook 'Lifted' His Ideas for Libra Cryptocurrency
MIT's Alex Lipton says there is a key design problem with Libra in that it would be issued in a non-immunized fashion against financial paper. Libra will need to buy high-grade paper to back the coin, so the owner of the paper will receive money from Libra (which it collected from consumers in return for Libra) and this money will start to circulate in the system. As such, there would be twice as much money in the system, with all the negative consequences.
Digital trade coin: towards a more stable digital currency
We propose a practical mechanism combining novel technological breakthroughs with well-established hedging techniques for building an asset-backed transactional oriented cryptocurrency, which we call the digital trade coin (DTC). We show that in its mature state, the DTC can serve as a much-needed counterpoint to fiat reserve currencies of today.
HANNIBAL AD PORTAS!
"Our solution boils down to assembling a pool of assets (contributed by sponsors), appointing an administrator (who provides enforcement of policies in extreme situations), digitizing the ownership rights on this pool, and building a special purpose narrow bank to facilitate activities of the administrator. This solution was published a year ago in both Scientific American and the Royal Society under the name Tradecoin."
We’ve had private currencies like Libra before. It was chaos
The result might be a modern version of the type of price volatility that private currencies caused in the US back in the 1830s. Bullard predicts that today’s consumers and businesses won’t like exchange-rate chaos any more today than people did then. He says that system’s unpopularity factored into the government’s decision a few decades later to replace it with a national banking system. Out of that chaos, the dollar was able to rule.
Facebook warns investors that Libra may never see the light of day
Facebook says in the risk factors section of its latest quarterly report that it can’t guarantee Libra “will be made available in a timely manner, or at all."
Philippines’ UnionBank Launches Payments-Focused Stablecoin
Philippines-based UnionBank has launched a payments-focused stablecoin pegged to the Philippine peso, dubbed PHX, that is being implemented on UnionBank’s i2i platform.
Zuckerberg Plans to Wiretap Whatsapp. He’ll Do the Same to Libra
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is reportedly working on a back-door content-scanner for WhatsApp, tantamount to a wiretapping algorithm. If the reports are correct, Facebook will scan your messages before you send them and report anything suspicious.
Facebook’s Libra: Does the World Need Frictionless Money?
Facebook seems to think its new digital currency Libra will be used mainly for purchasing goods and services and for current account transactions. But it will probably be used mainly for capital account transactions. Do we really want to eliminate frictional costs on the capital account?
Was Tether the Unknown Bitcoin Whale Behind Monday’s $2.27 Billion Transfer?
The massive $2.27 billion bitcoin transfer that occurred on Monday has led to the emergence of fanciful theories that Tether might be creating a private dark pool for future USDT issuance.
Millions in Crypto Is Crossing the Russia-China Border Daily. There, Tether Is King
Chinese importers in Russia are buying up to $30 million a day of tether from Moscow’s OTC trading desks. They use the cryptocurrency to send large sums back to their home country, which has strict capital controls. Previously the merchants used bitcoin for this, but when the market crashed in 2018 they switched to tether. Despite longstanding questions about USDT’s collateral, in this market “nobody actually cares if tether is backed or not,” says one Moscow trader.
Go Slow On Libra. Speed Up On Faster Payments.
The ability to move money safely, securely, cheaply and quickly is of vital national importance. It touches everyone and every part of our economy. It should be considered a critical component of our national infrastructure, just as cash is today, and deployed in the broad public interest.
WhatsApp under pressure from Five Eyes nations to allow access to encrypted chat
WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services face pressure to hand over access to encrypted chats after a meeting between the "Five Eyes" nations which share intelligence this week. "The Five Eyes are united that tech firms should not develop their systems and services, including end-to-end encryption, in ways that empower criminals or put vulnerable people at risk."
Walmart is Trying to Patent Its Own ‘Libra’ Like Digital Currency
A new patent filing suggests that US retail giant Walmart may be developing a U.S. dollar-backed digital currency-based ecosystem similar to Facebook’s Libra’s.
Stablecoins Preferred for Payments Over Trading, Paxos and Coinbase Changing Directions
Stablecoin issuers including Coinbase, Paxos and Terra are planning to change directions as a result of consumer interest in using stablecoins as a mean of payment rather than simply for trading. St
Global Regulators Warn on Privacy Risks of Facebook's Libra
Data privacy commissioners from Australia, Albania, Burkina Faso, Canada, the EU, the U.K., the U.S., shared concerns that “while Facebook and Calibra have made broad public statements about privacy, they have failed to specifically address the information handling practices that will be in place to secure and protect personal information.
Tether Stablecoin Wallet Analysis Shows 318 Wallets Control 80% Of All USDT In Existence
Centralization is a well-known problem of crypto markets. People often referred to as whales control a fifth of some markets and have the strength to promote manipulation whenever they want to. Tether, however, seems to be facing an even worse situation: only 318 crypto addresses actually control 80% of the circulating supply of Tether.
Allianz In 'Advanced Stages' Of Accepting Crypto For Payment
Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty is developing a "token-based" ecosystem, utilizing blockchain, to simplify and accelerate cross-border insurance payments for its corporate customers.
As the Western World Gets Nervous About Facebook Libra, well, We might Not Be The Target Market
If the likes of Western Union or Ria Financial Services, or MoneyGram intend to make a fist of this fight and not get swept away in the Facebook tidal wave, then it’s on them to do something that they probably haven’t had to do in quite some time... Win over their audience.
Why Washington should get behind Facebook's Libra
"Libra is an opportunity for the American financial industry to leapfrog Alipay and other Chinese fintech, provide much of the world with sorely needed reliable banking and simply make doing business in America less expensive. "
Tether Behind Bitcoin's $4000 to $13,800 Bull Rally: Analyst
When you see a large Tether print it means a handful of wealthy clients have essentially preordered batches of Tethers, days in advance, to then dump on the market–often before it’s begun to surge. Buying significant amounts of USDT also allows whales to make trades on deeply liquid crypto exchanges that do not transact in fiat currencies.
The Nightmare of Disintermediation
I think twice about the utopian ideal of disintermediation and I think you should too. When all the vampire squids have gone extinct and Rich Uncle Pennybags is dead and buried, we may look back and wish we had once more the sense of order they provided. We may long for the days when our enemies were so easily defined.
Libra: possible risks in Facebook’s pursuit of a ‘stablecoin’
The price of the Libra will depend on the commitment to supply coins at the speed demanded. This is not a trivial matter as the Association will have to back new coins with the underlying assets. Consider an occasion in which a Libra hype leads to a very high demand for coins (not unlike what we have seen for bitcoins). To preserve the value of one Libra, the Association will have to mint new coins at the rate demanded and back them up by buying the assets in the underlying composition. It is not obvious that suppliers will be willing to do that for any level demanded.
Digging further into Libra's origin story
Fintech Beat talks with the former head of Bank of America’s global quant business, and a co-founder of Sila Money, who has raised red flags about the Facebook Libra project. Alex Lipton argues that Libra’s core design resembles the vision laid out in an open-source paper published by the Royal Society and Scientific American.
The Real Reason Facebook Is Starting a Cryptocurrency
Facebook is getting into cryptocurrency because once they have a widely accepted payment method, their garden will be the largest in the world. Basically, a company is creating a walled garden when all of its apps, products, and services are interconnected with each other, and sometimes reliant on each other.
Will Facebook’s Libra Turn into a Cancer?
Facebook's planned cyber currency, Libra, is little more than a glorified currency board – the failed arrangement that in 2001 caused the largest sovereign default the world had ever seen. A major risk is devaluation – and the problems don't stop there.
Assessing the true potential of Libra’s financial inclusion objectives
"Even discounting the large number of unbanked adults who don’t have formal ID or mobile internet, and whom Libra won’t be able to reach in its initial stages, we estimate that Facebook’s digital currency still has the potential to reach between 370 and 800 million unbanked people1 by providing access to financial services, cheap capital, and the open, instant, and low-cost movement of money."