Facebook and Its New Currency

[AussieDave]

Last night's TV news, ran a story about Facebook's upcoming digital currency. I didn't really take much notice, cause their last effort (approx 10 years ago) failed. However, to be fair, their last attempt were merely tokens, which could be used to purchase apps and stuff across other Social Media platforms.

I had to laugh though... My partner commented (clearly she's bought into the blah, blah): "This is really great, you can send money instantly to anymore!"

(bare in mind she's not techie, and her FB is purely social with friends and family)

Be that as it may, it truly was one of those what tha??? moments.

Not wanting to totally deflate here obvious enthusiasm, I merely pointed out you can do that already with PayPal, and other web wallets too. "Oh, I didn't know that", came the reply. Bless her heart

Anyway, what are your thoughts on Facebook's plans to release a digital currency?

 

[NDG]

I don't see it taking off. It will make a lot of news because its "Facebook", but I don't
see it as being the next big thing. I've heard it will be connected to a fiat currency,
so it's not going to have swings in value, like what you see from Bitcoin and other coins.

 

[TheGooner]

As you pointed out facebook's new coin offering offering is little more than an e-wallet.

- The token is pegged to the USD.
- The processing will be centralised.
- The spending can be vetted, approved (and denied) by authority.

It has nothing to do with blockchain. Fully private, controlled, centralized, verified and authorized by a small number of permissioned nodes. So what is crypto or blockchain about it? Nothing.

It's a bank, or an e-wallet with a ledger of transactions ... but none of those labels are "cool" so it's hyped as a cryptocurrency is an attempt to get mass coverage which it has managed.

------------------------

As to what do I think about it? Not much. I may use it instead of paypal or skrill in the medium term where I run into (an ever decreasing number of) websites that don't accept crypto yet.

I guess it will introduce a whole new level of people into crypto - as they'll have a wallet - and get familiar to paying in tokens (rather than dollars) and they'll eventually look at moving over to other tokens.

I wouldn't put much into it myself though - currently we can't trust facebook with our privacy - currently we see mass facebook censorship when it comes to issues like gambling (and crypto ironically) ... so why would I trust them with my money?

 

[RyanWeb]

As someone sarcastically said on Twitter: "Can't wait for a cryptocurrency with the ethics of Uber, the censorship resistance of Paypal, and the centralization of Visa, all tied together under the proven privacy of Facebook."

 

[Gamblerspro.com]

I don't think it will ultimately work, but I believe that this is a majorly positive move for crypto in general. It forces the regulators to take action, which will benefit the legit projects in the space.

 

[LandofOz]

They've already gathered massive amounts of data about us, why not give them our banking details as well?

 

[Jetman]

In my opinion you are just spamming old threads with unusefull comments to up your post count Tracey

 

[RyanWeb]

In my opinion you are just spamming old threads with unusefull comments to up your post count Tracey

I agree, in fact I have 100/0 thoughts about it.

 

[melcb]

We have warned and are monitoring 'Tracy Martin'