Seriously, Facebook having a dominant global currency scares the shit out of me. You can avoid Facebook now if you want, but if their currency ends up taking over world finance, then they're...
Seriously, Facebook having a dominant global currency scares the shit out of me. You can avoid Facebook now if you want, but if their currency ends up taking over world finance, then they're essentially creating a government that sits above all else.
They never will. This is just an attempt to jump on the Blockchain fad, except they’re several years too late. Lots of big Silicon Valley companies just seem to be sniffing around for interesting...
They never will. This is just an attempt to jump on the Blockchain fad, except they’re several years too late.
Lots of big Silicon Valley companies just seem to be sniffing around for interesting things for smart engineers to work on rather than anything that’s actually valuable to the company, let alone society.
They have such firm monopoly positions it doesn’t even matter if it damages their bottom line because financial analysts have no basis for comparison to decide how well Facebook is doing besides Facebook’s own past performance. I’m convinced that the vast majority of all innovations in privacy invading ad tech over the past half decade (or more) are just inflated valuation based on this dynamic. They’ve got plenty of negative externalities, but the upside is just nebulous shit that’s fun for data scientists to work on, but of dubious actual value.
They don’t even lose their reputation for competence, because they have no competition to test against. And they legitimately have tons of smart people, but the sharpest knife in the world won’t make you dinner if you don’t know how to cut with it.
Yeah I'd be a lot more concerned if this were a few years ago. Between Facebook having less of a bad reputation and Bitcoin being the new "it" technology, they would've had a much better chance of...
Yeah I'd be a lot more concerned if this were a few years ago. Between Facebook having less of a bad reputation and Bitcoin being the new "it" technology, they would've had a much better chance of convincing people to try it out. As it stands I think the well-known volatility of bitcoin (and currencies like it) and rising distrust of Facebook means this will be dead in the water like their phone and ISP are.
Also if anything is going to get governments to start regulating currencies like this, it's going to be a huge company like Facebook getting into it.
I wouldn't worry about that, and not just from Facebook. The future we're seeing will include thousands of different cryptocurrencies, each aimed at specific needs, specific goals, and specific...
I wouldn't worry about that, and not just from Facebook.
The future we're seeing will include thousands of different cryptocurrencies, each aimed at specific needs, specific goals, and specific markets. This insane level of diversification in finance is a good thing. No one crypto matters any longer, all of them are expendable. It's a wild-west frontier of redefining what money and value means. Think of each crypto like you used to think of a single website back in 1990 and then run that forward to the modern web - that's where we're going.
Look on the bright side - financial stability is no longer tied to any one government or government-backed currency. World dependence on a 'global reserve currency' has been a weakness of global finance and a cause of collapse in the past. We may have finally found a mechanism to move away from that problem.
Another bonus is that since they all operate under different rules, there's a level of resilience here based on financial control. It will soon become impossible for governments, or anyone else, to track assets, seize assets, or even reliably tax assets. Hundreds of years of paperwork is going up in smoke right now. I'm sure that causes some people to panic. I look at it as taking the shackles off of the market. The old black/white market paradigm is looking to become one giant grey market.
I fully expect something that evolves out of this system to revolutionize crowdsourcing and replace venture capital as the primary means of business funding. We're not there yet, but someone will figure it out. I also expect it to replace DNS and most other forms of digital property. There are even solutions to piracy in here.
Not for me! I don't really want to be carrying funds in thousands of different cryptocurrency accounts, because Anne uses one crypto, Bob uses another crypto, ABC Online Sales uses yet another...
The future we're seeing will include thousands of different cryptocurrencies, each aimed at specific needs, specific goals, and specific markets. This insane level of diversification in finance is a good thing.
Not for me! I don't really want to be carrying funds in thousands of different cryptocurrency accounts, because Anne uses one crypto, Bob uses another crypto, ABC Online Sales uses yet another crypto, and XYZ Web Supplies uses yet another crypto. That sounds awful. Every time I make a payment, I'll have to ask whether the recipient accepts UseCoin or PhantomCoin or RealCrypto or MyDoge, and then sign up to their preferred crypto and transfer money into the crypto and then make the payment. How the fuck am I supposed to navigate that environment as an ordinary person who just wants to buy something?
The point of currency is to have a medium of exchange that everyone can use because everyone uses it. A fractured exchange market isn't useful for ordinary people like me.
Ah, but someone will come up with a simple conversion mechanism, so you'll never need to even think about it - no more than, as now, when you use your Visa in a foreign country, and Visa does the...
Ah, but someone will come up with a simple conversion mechanism, so you'll never need to even think about it - no more than, as now, when you use your Visa in a foreign country, and Visa does the exchange for you giving you the day's best exchange rate. You just swipe a card, or scan a thumb print, or slide a bar on your phone.
The rest you mention are more like stocks, and will only be interesting to those who are involved in the stock market (or whatever crypto converts that into), so they won't matter at all for every day exchanges.
Will this hypothetical conversion mechanism convert my real currency into these cryptothingies? Because I'm just not going to start signing up for these cryptos. I'll keep my funds in dollars. If...
Ah, but someone will come up with a simple conversion mechanism, so you'll never need to even think about it -
Will this hypothetical conversion mechanism convert my real currency into these cryptothingies? Because I'm just not going to start signing up for these cryptos. I'll keep my funds in dollars. If someone I'm paying wants to receive something else, let them have the hassle, not me: they're the one choosing to go outside of the system, not me. Or I'll just take my dollars to someone who will accept them.
The rest you mention are more like stocks,
I made them up for the sake of discussion (or at least, I thought I did). They're not supposed to be real cryptos.
so they won't matter at all for every day exchanges.
Then they're not currencies. If I can't use them to buy things, they're not a currency.
Of course. It's a simple point calculation to convert any currency, crypto or otherwise, into any other, on demand. We do this every day right now with all of the government-backed currencies...
Of course. It's a simple point calculation to convert any currency, crypto or otherwise, into any other, on demand. We do this every day right now with all of the government-backed currencies worldwide, tens of millions of transactions, and nobody thinks about it. At this point, it's all just electrons, and the computer will handle them. Electrons, not dollars, are the real currency right now. We just label them in units that correspond to conventional government currencies. Crypto will simply merge with that, once financial regulators and banks and payment processors work out the law and the logistics of it all. That's the only real holdup here - banks are exceptionally cautious entities.
Chris Dixon wrote that technologies usually arrive in pairs, a strong form and a weak form. Strong-form technologies are started by enthusiasts with revolutionary ideas and long time horizons....
Chris Dixon wrote that technologies usually arrive in pairs, a strong form and a weak form.
Strong-form technologies are started by enthusiasts with revolutionary ideas and long time horizons. Businesses want to quickly commercialize these technologies, but the implications are too radical or too open or too threatening to established interests.
So they create weakened and hobbled imitations of the strong-form technologies.
Facebook's private, controlled, censored, surveilled and monetized cryptocurrency may well see great success, but I would bet on the public and open technologies that have already already captured the imaginations of millions.
Strong Form
Weak Form
Public internet
Private intranets
Crowdsourced encyclopedia (Wikipedia)
Expert authored encyclopedia (Encarta)
App-based media companies (Netflix)
Video on demand delivered by cable companies
Permissionless blockchains powered by cryptocurrencies
Hopefully it'll join the rest of the worthless shitcoins that have tried to cash in on Bitcoin's notoriety. They're several years too late to be jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.
Hopefully it'll join the rest of the worthless shitcoins that have tried to cash in on Bitcoin's notoriety. They're several years too late to be jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.
'the same thing we do every night, try to take over the world'
Seriously, Facebook having a dominant global currency scares the shit out of me. You can avoid Facebook now if you want, but if their currency ends up taking over world finance, then they're essentially creating a government that sits above all else.
They never will. This is just an attempt to jump on the Blockchain fad, except they’re several years too late.
Lots of big Silicon Valley companies just seem to be sniffing around for interesting things for smart engineers to work on rather than anything that’s actually valuable to the company, let alone society.
They have such firm monopoly positions it doesn’t even matter if it damages their bottom line because financial analysts have no basis for comparison to decide how well Facebook is doing besides Facebook’s own past performance. I’m convinced that the vast majority of all innovations in privacy invading ad tech over the past half decade (or more) are just inflated valuation based on this dynamic. They’ve got plenty of negative externalities, but the upside is just nebulous shit that’s fun for data scientists to work on, but of dubious actual value.
They don’t even lose their reputation for competence, because they have no competition to test against. And they legitimately have tons of smart people, but the sharpest knife in the world won’t make you dinner if you don’t know how to cut with it.
Yeah I'd be a lot more concerned if this were a few years ago. Between Facebook having less of a bad reputation and Bitcoin being the new "it" technology, they would've had a much better chance of convincing people to try it out. As it stands I think the well-known volatility of bitcoin (and currencies like it) and rising distrust of Facebook means this will be dead in the water like their phone and ISP are.
Also if anything is going to get governments to start regulating currencies like this, it's going to be a huge company like Facebook getting into it.
I wouldn't worry about that, and not just from Facebook.
The future we're seeing will include thousands of different cryptocurrencies, each aimed at specific needs, specific goals, and specific markets. This insane level of diversification in finance is a good thing. No one crypto matters any longer, all of them are expendable. It's a wild-west frontier of redefining what money and value means. Think of each crypto like you used to think of a single website back in 1990 and then run that forward to the modern web - that's where we're going.
We're already up to over two thousand active cryptocurrencies. Everyone focusing on BTC, LTC, and ETH is completely missing the point of this tech. ;)
Look on the bright side - financial stability is no longer tied to any one government or government-backed currency. World dependence on a 'global reserve currency' has been a weakness of global finance and a cause of collapse in the past. We may have finally found a mechanism to move away from that problem.
Another bonus is that since they all operate under different rules, there's a level of resilience here based on financial control. It will soon become impossible for governments, or anyone else, to track assets, seize assets, or even reliably tax assets. Hundreds of years of paperwork is going up in smoke right now. I'm sure that causes some people to panic. I look at it as taking the shackles off of the market. The old black/white market paradigm is looking to become one giant grey market.
I fully expect something that evolves out of this system to revolutionize crowdsourcing and replace venture capital as the primary means of business funding. We're not there yet, but someone will figure it out. I also expect it to replace DNS and most other forms of digital property. There are even solutions to piracy in here.
Not for me! I don't really want to be carrying funds in thousands of different cryptocurrency accounts, because Anne uses one crypto, Bob uses another crypto, ABC Online Sales uses yet another crypto, and XYZ Web Supplies uses yet another crypto. That sounds awful. Every time I make a payment, I'll have to ask whether the recipient accepts UseCoin or PhantomCoin or RealCrypto or MyDoge, and then sign up to their preferred crypto and transfer money into the crypto and then make the payment. How the fuck am I supposed to navigate that environment as an ordinary person who just wants to buy something?
The point of currency is to have a medium of exchange that everyone can use because everyone uses it. A fractured exchange market isn't useful for ordinary people like me.
Ah, but someone will come up with a simple conversion mechanism, so you'll never need to even think about it - no more than, as now, when you use your Visa in a foreign country, and Visa does the exchange for you giving you the day's best exchange rate. You just swipe a card, or scan a thumb print, or slide a bar on your phone.
The rest you mention are more like stocks, and will only be interesting to those who are involved in the stock market (or whatever crypto converts that into), so they won't matter at all for every day exchanges.
Will this hypothetical conversion mechanism convert my real currency into these cryptothingies? Because I'm just not going to start signing up for these cryptos. I'll keep my funds in dollars. If someone I'm paying wants to receive something else, let them have the hassle, not me: they're the one choosing to go outside of the system, not me. Or I'll just take my dollars to someone who will accept them.
I made them up for the sake of discussion (or at least, I thought I did). They're not supposed to be real cryptos.
Then they're not currencies. If I can't use them to buy things, they're not a currency.
Of course. It's a simple point calculation to convert any currency, crypto or otherwise, into any other, on demand. We do this every day right now with all of the government-backed currencies worldwide, tens of millions of transactions, and nobody thinks about it. At this point, it's all just electrons, and the computer will handle them. Electrons, not dollars, are the real currency right now. We just label them in units that correspond to conventional government currencies. Crypto will simply merge with that, once financial regulators and banks and payment processors work out the law and the logistics of it all. That's the only real holdup here - banks are exceptionally cautious entities.
Chris Dixon wrote that technologies usually arrive in pairs, a strong form and a weak form.
Strong-form technologies are started by enthusiasts with revolutionary ideas and long time horizons. Businesses want to quickly commercialize these technologies, but the implications are too radical or too open or too threatening to established interests.
So they create weakened and hobbled imitations of the strong-form technologies.
Facebook's private, controlled, censored, surveilled and monetized cryptocurrency may well see great success, but I would bet on the public and open technologies that have already already captured the imaginations of millions.
https://tildes.net/~tech/dqy/facebook_plans_to_launch_globalcoin_currency_in_2020
Mr Robot wasn't meant to be a guide, Facebook!
Hopefully it'll join the rest of the worthless shitcoins that have tried to cash in on Bitcoin's notoriety. They're several years too late to be jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.
Oh ffs... How much is enough?