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Comment by civicsquid | Hacker News Reader

I think it's more of an anti-tech mindset more than an anti-Facebook mindset. If Google did this, I imagine that Germany would be just as upset.

If, for example, Goldman Sachs did the same thing, that might not go over smoothly, but I don't think it would see such a negative reaction. I'd assume that feels more in line with the status-quo, whereas tech companies getting involved in financial instruments is not as familiar.

I more so wonder what would happen if a company like Stripe did this. They are sort of a "financial" company, but I'd say also undoubtedly a "tech" company too.

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I think the way Facebook did this was the right way. It set up Libra as an independent non-profit and they have a non controlling share. The founding members include Stripe, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal.

All the media coverage on Libra is incredibly dishonest and ill-informed.

That's fair, I think I forget that not everyone knows that this is a project managed by a consortium, not by a single company alone.

The consortium is like a rogue's gallery of companies I distrust though, so I'm not sure decentralizing my deep distrust is going to help the Libra project.

Yes, but Facebook will have enormous power in this deal as they own the platform.

Distrusting them is the only logical conclusion given their track record and power.

Libra isn't a decentralized crypto currency, it's a new fiat currency minted by a private corporation with a very questionable track record and an uncomfortable amount of concentrated power. It's also seated in a country with a very weak track record enforcing rules on giant corporation misbehaving.

Users choosing to use something they collectively create and control is very different than this type of centralized power moves. They are in essence trying to bring billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of the worlds savings into US jurisdiction (and likely invested in the US economy via bonds and stocks)

Good decision on the part of Germany and France IMO. I hope more countries follow their example and protect their sovereignty.

> They are in essence trying to bring billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of the worlds savings into US jurisdiction (and likely invested in the US economy via bonds and stocks

That's not true:

> What are the actual assets that will be backing each Libra coin? The actual assets will be a collection of low-volatility assets, including bank deposits and government securities in currencies from stable and reputable central banks.[0]

[0] https://libra.org/en-US/about-currency-reserve/#the_reserve

> invested in the US economy via bonds and stocks

> bank deposits and government securities

Your point doesn't contradict mine. It actually re-enforces it.

What percentage will be in US deposits and government securities? US bank deposits get invested into the market, so yes, this would take the money from someone in France, who would currently hold savings in a French bank involved in the local economy and move it to Facebook's vault.

The very link you provided lacks transparency and is exactly the type of reason I distrust Facebook. In fact it doesn't have a single #, percentage or actual thing I could verify/which they are committing to, the language is vague... I'm guessing intentionally so.

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