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by wickoff 2555 days ago
You don't need to ask Facebook permission to transfer the money, but they reserve the right to intervene if you commit fraud. That's why they are using a blockchain.

The governments will love it because it allows for perfect surveillance, the people will love it because it makes international payments seamless, it can erase the predatory remittance business out of existence. If they can convince merchants to accept it, they can also improve on credit card UX.
2 comments
emerongi 2555 days ago
How is that different from transferring money through a bank?

I can understand the benefit of this from the standpoint that it will be essentially a global currency, which will reduce transfer times and just generally make it easier to send money, however I don't understand why a blockchain is involved. We already have similar solutions (Paypal, Transferwise etc), is blockchain just a way to market this thing?

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wickoff 2555 days ago
Banks transfers take longer, banks transfers cost money and international banks transfers outside of SEPA network are a nightmare and they can get blocked/stalled for odd reasons.

Blockhain is a technical convenience - the Libra Association consists of 28 members. Everybody is more comfortable with money being stored on the public ledger rather than on a database server owned by Facebook. Blockchain is useful in cases where a collaborative/adversarial relationship exists between multiple parties. In this case this is regulators, governments, Libra association members and users. Blockchain keeps everybody honest, compliant and ensures data integrity.

It also removes some of legal responsibility from Facebook because they don't actually process the transactions themselves, it's peer 2 peer.

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sasasassy 2555 days ago
It's just marketing. Of course if you really want to you can bend a blockchain for this purpose, eroding it as much as possible, with the central validators and what not. A rose by any other name...
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literallycancer 2555 days ago
A transatlantic bank transfer will cost you over 30 euros in correspondent bank fees, in addition to the fees your bank and their bank charge. And you'll get no receipt for that, because banks suck.
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oarsinsync 2555 days ago
> A transatlantic bank transfer will cost you over 30 euros

Not will, but can. I did a transatlantic SWIFT payment recently and it cost me $9 in correspondent bank fees. I did another one and it cost me $0 in fees. I did another and it cost $18.

In each instance, I was able to get a SWIFT trace by asking the emitting and receiving banks to provide this. I didn't get a receipt for the SWIFT fees correspondent banks charged, but I did get receipts for the bank fees at either end.

Banks do suck, and the payment networks also suck, but sometimes they can suck less.

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ulfw 2555 days ago
How is a VISA/Mastercard not 'seamless' for international payments?
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