[K0SM0S]

Worth noting however that Facebook could register some entity as a bank and operate the Libra service from there (even sharing offices with Fb, that's not illegal afaik).

They would fall under all possible kinds and manners of banking regulation, but it's viable; many companies originally outside of the fin sector are offering financial services now (notably Orange, the French leading and historical ISP, formerly a state-owned public company).

This would likely result in some tiny fee when crossing in/out of the traditional banking sector (from/to Libra and some regular account or merchant paying system), and maybe when entering/leaving Europe, but would remain largely free for Libra transactions within the EU.

Which, as I see it, is the purpose of said regulation: to protect EU citizens (account insurance up to €100K, rights to certain features like free inter-bank transfers within the EU, etc). Libra unregulated would basically fall to Facebook's unilateral rules for protection and features, and that just isn't acceptable to the EU.

[davidgerard]

So far as I can tell, (a) Calibra will be a "custodial wallet", i.e. it'll hold the Libra tokens and present to the user a bit like PayPal; (b) they're talking up a Libra-per-currency, rather than the synthetic basket; (c) they're actively at work developing Calibra, in some sense.

To me, it's increasingly looking like they're heading for Calibra as PayPal-but-it's-Facebook. This is a more sane and comprehensible business idea, at least.

[K0SM0S]

Indeed, and thanks for the info. Makes sense, definitely.

Basically just a layer of abstraction like in-game currency in virtual worlds, only this one has some 2.2b 'players' so the in-world PayPal is one hell of an easy way to transfer money?

That's much less sexy from a technological and social standpoint, but it might just be the simplest way to both reach a solution and seduce just enough blockchain lovers for the 'buzz' (best fueled by Controvery®).

When you think about it, people use items as secondary currency to exchange real-world money since forever and a day. E.g casino chips (physical), in-game assets ("virtual" but really we just mean software i.e. codified text, like we'd write score cards in tabletop RPG, or... computer punched cards). Colibra, fundamentally, would be just that...

So much ado about nothing if it turns out to be such a custodial abstraction. Now I expect Colibra lootboxes and gift shops in WhatsApp and Instagram! — once you've seen people spend hundreds on pixels in games, cosmetic shaders to embellish their avatar, you know there's no limit to human commerce. Probably Facebook's endgame with Libra if you ask me.