Libra is continually creating interest and reactions which are reflected in fresh news and articles. Let’s review and comment on the most interesting ones!
Binance Considering Becoming a Node for Libra
CryptoPotato has interviewed Binance’s Chief Strategy Officer, Gin Chao, yesterday. Regarding Libra, Mr Chiao confirmed that his company is considering becoming a validator node for Libra.
“It’s a good thing, for sure. Any time a company with the weight, size, resources, and impact of Facebook gets involved, it validates both blockchain and then, in this particular case, cryptocurrencies specifically.
Read the full article here.
Mark Zuckerberg Defends Libra
In an article by CCN Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook has only 1% of the voting power, so we don’t need to trust Facebook to trust Libra.
Libra Association is an independent organization, and we will have one vote in it… By the time it launches, hopefully we will have 100 co-founding companies.
Source:CCN
The article thesis opposes Zuckerberg’s case arguing that there is no corporation able to protect customer’s information in the internet era and shows several examples of data breaches in eBay, Uber, CardSystems and Facebook itself to demonstrate it.
Now, with 100 partners sharing the complete information of the billions of users, what is the likelihood that hackers could breach their computers and steal personal financial information, if not their money?
The article, also states that with Bitcoin and other cryptos, there is no need to trust anyone, since the blockchain technology takes care of the trust issue.
The argument falls by its own weight because also crypto companies have suffered hacker attacks stealing thousands of coins, the latest events being Binance hack with 7,000 Bitcoins stolen, and just yesterday we knew that Bitrue had been hacked as well. To this, we can add scams such as Irish Crypto who seems to have disappeared with all the customer’s money, or small scams when trying to sell coins to fiat using credit cards or Paypal.
Of course, the blockchain concept is great, but human interaction cannot be avoided.
House Reps Question FinCEN Director on Libra’s Potential for Illegal Use
This article by Cointelegraph brings us a typical manipulative argument against Libra or any other cryptocurrency in general: Illegal use of the cryptocurrency.
Rep Emanuel Cleaver II said in his statement:
“[…] it cannot be understated the importance of Congress and financial transmitters to be proactive in utilizing the newest and most powerful technologies to ensure the financial system is not being used improperly.”
The argument is so good that it should be applied to weapons in the first place.
This argumentation might be only their excuse to stop Libra, as the real threat is that it goes against the dollar. Rep. Cleaver’s real fears showed in this statement:
“We’ve seen the significant damage that foreign adversaries and bad actors have wrought on our democracy through Facebook’s platform, and that was simply through messaging and advertising.”
Sources for the quoted paragraphs: Cointelegraph
More on the coverage of this event here.
Stanford Law Professor Grundfest on Hurdles for Libra
On this article by the Standford Law School Professor Joseph Grundfest, an expert on capital markets, corporate governance and securities litigation was interviewed about Facebook’s Libra.
According to professor Grundfest, right now, we cannot tell what Libra is. He argues that “the devil is always in the details”. He tells that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks COO admitted the day after Libra’s announcement
We know we have a lot of work to do, but this was an announcement of what we would like to do with a roadmap for people to jump in and help us do it.”
Therefore, professor Grundfest concludes:
Facebook might have a clear idea of the functionality that they would like to achieve, but they don’t really know how they are going to connect the dots to get from here to there, and how the regulators will respond. So, Facebook itself doesn’t really know what Libra is or what it will be. As of now, Libra is more a dream than a plan.
Asked by the most challenging issues Libra will face, he says
[…]People, in particular legislators and regulators, and most particularly in Europe, don’t trust Facebook. That’s a big hurdle for Facebook to overcome.[…]
Asked if there were other issues aside trust he said, “literally dozens”, and he developed on the topic of the permissionless blockchain
My prediction is that regulators will not allow Libra to operate as a permissionless system because then no court or regulator will have the ability to exercise authority over the actual operation of the blockchain.
Note: All quotations belong to the linked articles
