Produced | Odaily (ID: o-daily)
Produced | Odaily (ID: o-daily)
Two days later, there is still only one thing in the currency circle: Facebook issued coins.
On June 18, a Facebook cryptocurrency Libra white paper was launched as scheduled, attracting global attention.
It is not just a BaaS like BAT, AWS, and Microsoft; nor is it a To B alliance chain like JPMorgan Chase, but a currency issued on the blockchain to be used by global C-end users. Although Libra is only a stable currency (similar to USDT) that anchors a basket of currencies, it is not a highly volatile token like Bitcoin or ETH that is purely priced by consensus.
In other words, Facebook really issued coins.
Huang Zhen, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, believes that "Libra does not meet the definition of currency in finance. It is not issued by a sovereign state. It can be said to be an encrypted currency or a virtual currency, but it is not a legal tender. It is indeed closer to securities or certificates, and other The various tokens and certificates popular in the market have a high degree of consistency, and may be more suitable for supervision by the securities department.”
As soon as this matter came out, countless opinion leaders rushed to speak. It was regarded as a cryptocurrency by regulation, but it was not considered a cryptocurrency at all by cryptocurrency believers.
According to Odaily's incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 70 opinion fields and industry insiders who have publicly commented on the incident; related lectures or AMAs that have been publicized publicly have screened domestic currency circles of friends.
"The circle of friends and the Internet are all shaking." A BTG employee told Odaily. "In fact, the biggest pain that day was that I came from the Internet. In the past, I spent two or three hours telling him what is the use of the blockchain? It was useless. When the Facebook Libra came out, they all started It is very touching to understand the technical principles and why we are doing this. Although this Libra is only EOS+USDT, I think it has a higher probability of success.”
"The circle of friends and the Internet are all shaking." A BTG employee told Odaily. "In fact, the biggest pain that day was that I came from the Internet. In the past, I spent two or three hours telling him what is the use of the blockchain? It was useless. When the Facebook Libra came out, they all started It is very touching to understand the technical principles and why we are doing this. Although this Libra is only EOS+USDT, I think it has a higher probability of success.”
Those who have money spread money to make nodes, and those who have no money also crowdfund and say they want to be nodes together. Some projects that you have never heard of, began to say that they are "under preparation" to be Libra nodes.
At the same time, a forked Libra project appeared on Github, directly copying the Libra code, called Libra Classic.
Although Libra is not yet online at all, some exchanges have announced that they can buy Libra. It may be a white wolf with empty hands, or it may be just taking the opportunity to promote its product of buying US stocks with currency.
secondary title
Currency circle surprise faction: The revolution is coming, and the coinless blockchain should think behind closed doors
As soon as the Libra white paper came out, the loudest voices were cheerers.
They are often proponents of the blockchain and token economy for a long time, and believe that this is a major benefit to the cryptocurrency industry, which will bring more user bases to the cryptocurrency and cause the price of Bitcoin to skyrocket.
In the eyes of most cryptocurrency practitioners, Internet giants are not allowed and will not make "decentralization changes" that endanger their monopoly position. However, the Libra white paper clearly states that the underlying infrastructure will transition from a permissioned chain to a permissionless public chain in the future. This means that one day in the future, everyone can become a node of Libra, and its community governance will also be carried out by committee.
Gu Yanxi, founder of the distributed asset clearing system DAEX (Digital Assets Exchange Group), believes that this is a milestone in the development of digital currency.
Meng Yan, the vice president of CSDN who once wrote a 40,000-character article discussing Facebook’s currency issuance, immediately forwarded the white paper to Moments, and commented: “It’s more powerful than I thought. The experts who said I was whimsical two days ago are happy or not. Accident?"
Wang Feng, the former CEO of Linekong Interactive and the founder of Mars Finance, believes that an open financial revolution is about to emerge, and advocates of the currency-free blockchain should go home and review behind closed doors. "The birth of Libra will lead to more transaction scenarios. Although it will have a great impact on the market position of existing stablecoins including USDT and even Ethereum, it is likely to attract more than two billion people in the world. Gateway to investing in Bitcoin."
Wang Binsheng, a postgraduate distinguished professor of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who has participated in the design of many token business models and economic models, believes that the token issued by Libra is based on the principle of blockchain technology. "As long as it has the characteristics of the blockchain, it must be cross-border and free to circulate, because Facebook is an Internet giant, and this event will be another milestone event in the blockchain world."
secondary title
Sarcasm: no innovation, essentially a central bank
The entry of giants has attracted cheers, but there are also many staunch believers in decentralization, who satirize that Facebook is still doing things in the old world, and has nothing to do with the concepts of centralization and openness.
Most of them belong to Defi (decentralized finance) practitioners.
Defi practitioners advocate the complete decentralization and trustlessness of finance, and anchor the assets on the chain. Although Facebook's Libra is an asset on the chain, the source of credit is the sovereign country behind each anchor asset, as well as its own brand; what's more, it is inevitable that KYC and user data will be called by governments around the world. In the eyes of Defi supporters, this is Violation of user privacy.
Erik Voorhees, CEO of ShapeShift, a Swiss digital currency exchange, tweeted: "Obviously, Libra is not a pure cryptocurrency. Don't think that Libra is private and borderless... Libra's stability is supported by a basket of assets, including fiat currencies and government bonds. Etc. In the long run, any cryptocurrency backed by fiat currency is weaker than other assets, such as bitcoin or gold. If Libra is against fiat currency, its value will tend to zero in the long run. "
Pan Chao, head of MakerDao China, the decentralized lending project with the largest Defi market share, also pointed out this point: "What are the actual assets that support each Libra coin? The actual assets will be a series of low-volatility assets, including stable Cash and government currency securities provided by reputable central banks."Obviously, the author of the white paper does not know this question.
EOS founder and BM bluntly saw little innovation on Libra. “Backing it with other assets means it fails when other assets fail. Effectively, this is a new central bank that sees little innovation.”
Dai Shichao, director of market public relations of the decentralized exchange DDEX & Hydro Protocol, expressed his opinion in his own name: "The essence of open finance is to give every ordinary person freedom of trading and financial freedom. However, KYC+ sharing user financial data This combination is equivalent to handing over the private key of my financial information to Facebook and its alliances and even the US government behind it, which has run counter to the original intention of open finance.”
The opinions of Defi practitioners are surprisingly consistent. This does not mean that they think that Facebook will fail, but instead they feel sorrow and lament knowing that it is more likely to succeed.
As Dai Shichao wrote, the so-called decentralization insisted by idealists may be insignificant:
secondary title
Facebook, which has taken the first step and is still difficult: surrounded by global regulation
From a technical point of view, no one is optimistic about Libra, and even when the Libra white paper was just released, it was involved in the controversy of plagiarizing the Bitcoin and Ethereum white papers.
Kong Huawei, director of the Shanghai Branch of the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that Libra is not very innovative technically, but is "worse" than Bitcoin. "It's actually a consortium chain with 71 nodes, which is even weaker than EOS, which is at least a public chain."
Technology is not necessarily the decisive factor in business, just like Tencent founder Ma Huateng commented: "The technology is very mature and not difficult, it depends on whether the regulation allows it."
Regulation is indeed the biggest obstacle facing Libra.
Although Libra will not provide services in jurisdictions that prohibit digital currencies, and David Marcus, head of Facebook's cryptocurrency project Libra and former PayPal president, has made it clear that Facebook will never provide privacy transactions like Monero or Zcash.
After the white paper of the project, various regulatory authorities began to siege Libra.
They worry that Libra will replace sovereign currency, will be used by terrorism, will master and leak user information...
All in all, they fear the decentralized part of Libra, but also worry about the centralized part.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire argues that governments have the right to"Ask Facebook for some guarantees", which will make it clear that Libra will not become a competitor to existing sovereign currencies. Stablecoins should not be "diverted to finance terrorism or any other illegal activity."
Maire also urged central banks of the G7 countries to understand the scope of the use of the cryptocurrency Libr. Maire is concerned that Facebook will be able to collect vast amounts of user data because all user accounts involving cryptocurrencies are subject to KYC verification.
Markus Ferber, a German member of the European Parliament, also warned that Facebook could become a "shadow bank", a possibility that should "sound alarm bells for regulators".
Maxine Waters, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, even wants Facebook to stop developing Libra until a hearing on the project is held.
She said that the cryptocurrency market currently does not have a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protections for investors, consumers and the economy as a whole. Therefore asked Facebook to suspend development. "Given the company's past problems, I am asking Facebook to agree to a moratorium on cryptocurrency project development until Congress and regulators have had an opportunity to examine these issues and take action."
Sherrod Brown, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, was more aggressive. He argued that Facebook had exploited user data in the past and therefore would not allow "a risky new cryptocurrency (the Libra token will be managed by a Swiss foundation) to be run in Swiss bank accounts without supervision."
These countries are not the countries where Libra's initial target users are located. Various analyzes believe that the first to be impacted by Facebook are some countries with unstable sovereign currency systems; on the contrary, the dominance of currencies such as the US dollar and the Japanese yen in the basket will be strengthened. However, these voiced countries have a stronger international discourse power and are more concerned by Facebook.
In the face of warnings from national regulators, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg responded: "The cryptocurrency Libra is still a long way from its launch." Regulators do have concerns about this, and we have meetings. We know we have a lot of work to do, and the announcement explains what we want to do with a roadmap to get people involved and help us get this done. "
In the 48 hours after Facebook issued the currency, everyone from the financial departments of the governments of various countries to the grassroots practitioners of the blockchain and the Internet could not sit still.
After all, Facebook has done something that many giants pay attention to, but can't do-so it is called a "milestone".
However, as a company with 2.7 billion users and a presence halfway around the world, it is bound to be constrained.
Based on the comments of Li Feng, the person in charge of Xiaoman’s blockchain, and Wang Xing, the founder of Meituan, Facebook must have made a lot of compromises. Idealists in the industry should not expect too much; it can only pick the softest bones and should bow its head Just bow your head, the collusion that should be conspired.
History tells us that it is not martyrs full of ideals but pragmatic politicians who can accomplish things.
