Congressional Oversight Hearing on Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

in #libra5 years ago

I am watching the House Financial Services Committee's hearing on Facebook's plan to create the Libra cryptocurrency. It is really fascinating to hear all the different questions members of congress have for someone from Facebook that likely knows more about crypto than any of them. Their lack of knowledge is not the reason for this post. A very interesting exchange I witnessed was between congressman Duffy from Wisconsin and the Facebook rep.

Representative Duffy pulled out a $20 dollar bill. He asked the fb rep. who in the world can use that currency. To which he responded anyone can. He then went on to ask the rep if Milo Yiannopoulos or Louis Farrakhan could use Libra. Both of those men are banned from Facebook as their views do not align with Facebook's community standards. The Facebook rep did not have a solid answer, but did address Facebook's standards and the reasons they have them.

Duffy's point was that Facebook's Libra currency, if globally adopted would be a massive new form of monetary movements, could be controlled and regulated based on what and who Facebook likes and agrees with. This is a very scary thought and I think is the complete opposite idea behind cryptocurrency. I won't even get into why Libra isn't a true cryptocurrency, but wanted to share my thoughts on this exchange.

What are your thoughts on Libra?

Do you think it will succeed?

I hope you enjoyed this post!

Please up-vote, share and follow-me @roundoar03

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Dear @roundoar03

He then went on to ask the rep if Milo Yiannopoulos or Louis Farrakhan could use Libra. Both of those men are banned from Facebook as their views do not align with Facebook's community standards

Wow. He nailed it with such a question.

Discussions regarding Libra and Facebook are very intense lately and I personally don't know yet what to think about it.

I'm mostly interested how FED and other central banks will react if they will realize that Libra is a threat for current financial system.

Personally I will not put my trust in Facebook and I don't think I will ever use Libra. However I will surely pay attention to this project as it may turn our financial world up-side-down....

Important question I would like to ask you, and hopefully you would share your own opinion:

  • many people out there seem to see Libra as a threat to current monetary system. I'm one of those. However I've learned that global economy is build on debt. And all debts are in FIAT currency. So does it really matter if people use Libra to pay for their "groceries" and shop online? They still need to pay all their debts and mortgages for next 20-30 years in their local fiat currency.

For that reason alone I cannot see monetary system being changed much. Neither by libra or bitcoin or any other crypto. Debts, goverment expenses, trade oil - all of it will still require $$$.

What do you think? Upvote on the way.

Yours,
Piotr

Thanks for your comment Piotr! I feel Libra would be a threat to current monetary systems, but that is no different than Bitcoin or any other crypto that may make a mass adoption into the market. Facebook has more power than I think people realize and they are the last company I would want to see with a hold on the financial sector. You may need to still use fiat over the coming years, but the goal would be to move into the crypto space for all forms of payment. Fiat currency is fully capable of collapse. Just because the dollar is the most powerful currency in the world today doesn't mean it will be tomorrow. In the mean time you can sell crypto for fiat if need be and during the bull runs your crypto is giving you more fiat than your fiat ever would have if you left it sitting somewhere.

awesome reply @roundoar03

I feel Libra would be a threat to current monetary systems

I feel Libra cannot be real threat as long as they are not being used to pay for oil, used to cover goverment expenses and mostly: debts and mortgages - also will be in FIAT, not libra.

Not to mention: all companies around the world will use FIAT for very many years. Try to re-educate any accounting person and you will see how difficult and challenging it is :)

However I'm not sure if my claims are right or wrong. Somehow more I think about Libra, less I'm worried. Maybe FIAT will die one day, but probably we all will die before it happens.

I also wanted to make some suggestion.

My impression is, that the hardest part of attracting attention on STEEMIT is the fact, that our audience have very little chance to actually find our publications. Lack of solid notification system is an obvious issue. And regardless how hard I would try - there is very little chance I would find out about your new interesting publications (my feed is just flooded with to many posts).

Please allow me to share some suggestion with you. If you would ever publish content related to blockchain, crypto, artificial intelligence, psychology etc. then perhaps you could simply send me memo with link to that post.

This way not only I would have a chance to read your publication, drop a comment but I will also `upvote it right away with almost 20k SP voting power (I also have almost 10k PAL tokens, which may give you some extra benefits is you're using PALnet.io)

Please let me know what do you think. This surely should sound like a interesting offer :))

Cheers, Piotr

I have not been very active posting lately, but I will be sure to try and notify you of any new publications. I appreciate your genuine interaction!

I'm with Duffy on this one. If Facebook wants to implement a currency, they need to allow anyone who holds it to be able to use it.

Agree 100%. Allowing facebook to have even more power and dictating who can use their monetary system is a deal breaker for me. All or none!

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