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 | | | | | | 1. Facebook officially announced its new cryptocurrency, Libra, after months of rumors and speculation. Libra will act as a stablecoin, drawing its value from a reserve of assets, including short-term securities from central banks, that will help protect its price from the wild swings some cryptocurrencies have been known to have. Along with the coin, Facebook is launching a subsidiary company called Calibra that aims to protect users' privacy by never mingling Libra payment information with Facebook data. The project already involves more than two dozen companies and nonprofits - each of which paid $10 million to host a node - with the goal of expanding to 100 members. "The existing blockchain systems have yet to reach mainstream adoption," the Libra white paper states. "Mass-market usage of existing blockchains and cryptocurrencies has been hindered by their volatility and lack of scalability, which have, so far, made them poor stores of value and mediums of exchange." - FORTUNE |  |     | | 2. Facebook Libra's whitepaper is an eight-section, 12-page overview of the new cryptocurrency. It says: - Libra's mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people.
- The goal of the Libra Blockchain is to serve as a solid foundation for financial services, including a new global currency, which could meet the daily financial needs of billions of people.
- Libra is designed to be a stable digital cryptocurrency that will be fully backed by a reserve of real assets — the Libra Reserve — and supported by a competitive network of exchanges buying and selling Libra.
- The Libra Association is governed by the Libra Association Council, which is comprised of one representative per validator node. Together, they make decisions on the governance of the network and reserve. Initially, this group consists of the Founding Members: businesses, nonprofit and multilateral organizations, and academic institutions from around the world.
- What's Next for Libra?: Over the coming months, the association will work with the community to gather feedback on the Libra Blockchain prototype and bring it to a production-ready state. The Libra Association will construct well-documented APIs and libraries to enable users to interact with the Libra Blockchain. The association will work to establish a geographically distributed and regulated group of global institutional custodians for the reserve.
- If you are a researcher or protocol developer, an early preview of the Libra testnet is available under the Apache 2.0 Open Source License, with accompanying documentation.
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| 5. Industry reaction to Facebook Libra has been generally positive. Crypto investor @Ariannasimpson said, "No, I don't think Libra is a threat to bitcoin. What it means for things like Ripple and Stellar, however, is a different story :)" U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang stated, "The new Facebook-backed cryptocurrency Libra could be a big step for the hundreds of millions of unbanked around the world. Its use of the blockchain makes a lot of sense. Could even curb corruption as a lot of int'l aid money intended for impoverished people never reaches them." Twitter commenter @EMostaque tweeted: | | | | 6. Negative remarks surrounding the reveal of Facebook Libra have been regarding centralization and also, the lack of oversight.
La_Barba, a user from Hacker News said, "Conceptually this is a bank, but with no interest returned to users, no financial oversight from governments, controlled by Silicon Valley's top companies." - HACKER NEWS Sherrod Brown, U.S. Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from Ohio, had the following to say regarding regulatory insight and Facebook Libra: | | | | 7. From The Forums: There have been a lot of funny reactions to the release of Facebook Libra. @Mrjasonchoi said on Twitter, "Next time a VC tells you companies with large existing user bases is the surefire way to bring crypto mainstream, send them a friend invite on Google+." @Cryptocobain stated, "Instagram, the Facebook owned company, is down today. Also today Facebook announced their new coin, Libra. Hopefully their financial network will not go down too! Bitcoin has never gone down" @Karbonbased tells the truth: | | | | 8. David Marcus, head of Facebook Calibra, talks about Facebook Libra with CNBC. - CNBC 9. Union Square Venture investor Fred Wilson says that his firm will be one of the 20 members of the Libra Association which will have the opportunity to participate in design and policy choices that will shape the network. - AVC 10. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the digital currency known as Libra shouldn't be seen as a replacement for traditional currencies and stated, "It is out of question that Libra become a sovereign currency,'' and, "It can't and it must not happen." - BLOOMBERG | | | | | | | |
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