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Comment by Mengkudulangsat | Hacker News Reader

What is so hateful about Libra when compared with the People Bank of China's digital currency project? When that is launched, any non-chinese can hold digital yuan without a bank account.

Wouldn't the west want something equivalent for geopolitical reasons?

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I don't think any of this is desirable. For me, it's similar to digital voting, I have strong technical concerns with crypto currencies. The cryptography behind them or the implementations will be broken. People claim that it's different now than it used to be. Every cryptographic system of the past has been broken, but now we have the computing power to make them future proof. There are no mathematical proofs for this assertion and there is no reason to believe it when you take into account the history of cryptography. Moreover, for some reasons the security margins in public cryptography tend to be far too low. I'd be surprised if many existing crypto currencies are even "quantum proof" yet - but attacks with quantum computers will likely be feasible in 10 - 20 years, if they aren't already for some state actors.

All it takes is one weakness in a protocol or one mathematical breakthrough in cryptanalysis, and the whole economy of a country could become vulnerable to attack and break down.

how is this different than getting a bank mainframe hacked?

It's a difference of scale. A single bank is less likely to drag down a whole economy and might even be insured against certain types of losses due to criminal activities. In contrast to this, if the value of a whole currency is destroyed over night, then the consequences are way more severe. Bear in mind that currency speculations and transactions can even get traditional currencies into trouble, see e.g. what happened in Argentinia.

As a "westerner" please explain me why I would want a private american company that has been known to neglect their responsibilities to wield geopolitical power?

I know what is the PCC's ideology. And it is socially more acceptable to dislike it than to boycott Facebook.

I don't even know what is Zuckberg's ideology. And I am actually more confident about the Chinese knowing what they are doing than about Zuck.

Yeah, I want something equivalent. I want digital euros. I get to vote for the guys who put that into place.

I don't care that a solution is "western" if it is not democratic.

Bank of China is not a private company it's run by the Chinese government. Facebook is not the US government.

I don't trust Facebook, but the Chinese government aren't exactly a shining paragon of virtue either.

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