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Facebook Plans To Create Its Own Cryptocurrency: Report (cheddar.com)
Facebook is "very serious" about launching its own cryptocurrency, news outlet Cheddar reported Friday. It's not the first time the idea of a Facebook coin has been floated, but it seems more apparent now in wake of Facebook's reshuffled executive structure and newly formed blockchain group. From the report: Facebook started studying blockchain almost a year ago, when a member of its corporate development team, Morgan Beller, began looking at how the social platform could use the emerging technology. At the time, Beller was the only Facebook employee devoted to studying blockchain, the digital and decentralized ledger that underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Her work was thrust into the spotlight this week when Facebook announced that the vice president in charge of the Messenger app, David Marcus, would lead a new team to "explore how to best leverage blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch."
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!! God nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sooo, FarmVille on steroids?
who exerts this much effort and energy (literally, it's a ton of electricity) for yet another made up currency (and one mostly used to purchase illegal drugs because heaven forbid somebody smoke a little pot and not go to jail). It's not like Crypto currencies even fix the problems with fiat currencies. They're even easier for central bodies to manipulate to the detriment of the working class. Heck, by all accounts there's 4 guys out of China playing the price of Bitcoin like a fiddle. And that's before the likes of Goldman Sach's (who are a defacto arm of the US Government) step in.
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What's next? Facebook housing? Zuckerberg buys an island (or a small country somewhere), renames it "Zuckerbergland" or "Facebookland" or something, and everything there is Facebook owned and Facebook branded? Cameras and microphones everywhere, including in your bedroom and bathroom, so everything you do 24/7/365 is posted automatically on Facebook? Your entire life logged and tracked and sold to 'partner companies'? And, of course, Facebook money, in the form of cryptocurrency. Fuck that, fuck all that sideways with a rusty chainsaw. Facebook and Zuckerberg and the whole gods-be-damned mess needs to die and go away forever, and all of 'social media' with it. It's a CANCER infecting our entire species.
Or, to put it differently, how could Facebook possibly get any worse?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Remember when Second Life's currency became highly valued and people poured loads of money into it? Where did all that money go? Basically, all these blockchain coins are is ponzi schemes, i.e. they're only worth anything if you can sell them at a profit to new investors. When new investors dry up, the value collapses precipitously.
The real news here is that Facebook has a female employee whose work is valued by upper management.
If Facebook is getting to the point where it can print money (which is why it wants it’s own cryptocurrency). Then it’s time for an investigation from the SEC.
I'm actually curious what "service" they will offer us that needs a decentralized database.
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
I see this as yet another way for Facebook to monetize its user base.
"Your friend sent you a message. To read it, please mine 0.05 FBCoin."
I'm giving them too much credit, they won't even ask...
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
But you can totally trust them to handle your money, right?
Figure out how the US government does currency and do the opposite
People will lose their minds
Obligatory step 3: profit
not going to fall for the Zucker, or AngryCoin, or whatever bilious nonsense scheme they are into here. all cryptocurrency is a scam, existing only to buy crap on the darknet. I don't intend to friend Tor, either.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Marcus said Facebook didn’t have plans to integrate cryptocurrency into its apps anytime soon.
What ? That seems to be only logical use case for them, and they're not doing it ? Makes no sense.
"Payments using crypto right now is just very expensive, super slow, so the various communities running the different blockchains and the different assets need to fix all the issues, and then when we get there someday, maybe we'll do something,” Marcus said.
That's stupid too. Facebook can slash transaction costs by keeping them off-chain, just moving virtual balances from one account to the other, and then only occasionally settle on-chain.
Facebook is not content with spying on your behavior on their web site, your mobile device, and "partner" web sites. Now they want your lifetime purchase history---in full or in part, whatever they can get.
Hell no.
This is pretty ballsy, especially after the way they flailed around publicly in response to the Cambridge Analytica fiasco.
I've got three words: Fuck the Zuck.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Something tells me that since the electricity costs would make an in-house mining operation barely profitable, they're just going to insert some JavaScript on every page that makes the users do the mining for them. You know, like those bad websites that do it without your consent, only this time it'll be done by a big "legit" company and your implied consent will be stealthily inserted into a ToS update which will take people months to notice.
Wouldn't be surprised if they give back users a small percentage of what's mined, too, to encourage people to stay on Facebook, use more Facebook, earn more Facecoin, never ever ever stop posting, never leave, keep liking things, stay here always... they'll make it seem like a good thing.
Yeah, and once Facebook crumbles : where are you going to run to ?
Instagram ?
WhatsApp ?
At most, Mark is going to say "meh", and make a mental note to make another attempt at buying Snap, to be ready for the up-coming next crumbling after the facebook's one.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Gotta regain all that stock value lost with the recent fiasco. Hey, it worked for other companies.
Concerns about Facebook taking over the world aside, this makes some sense.
The biggest problem any virtual currency has is the onboarding problem -- how do you get people to actually start using your currency, and to assign any non-zero value to it?
Facebook already has millions (billions?) of users "onboard" so it has a big head start in that area, which it could use to its advantage.
My hope is that Facebook doesn't just try to create "yet another virtual currency", however; that's been done to death already, and I don't think anyone really wants their money to be controlled by Facebook anyway.
The real potential use-case for Facebook would be in social authentication -- e.g. if they could use the blockchain to help the platform authenticate genuine posts and automatically filter out trolls, scammers, etc. I'm not sure if that's doable or not, but that would be of much more value to the world than "Facebook Flooz".
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Didn't seem to work for Pied Piper, why should it work for Facebook.
but one of the main arguments for ending fiat currencies is they can be manipulated in ways that hurt workers. I'm not saying any of that's true (I kinda like the stability that comes from a fiat currency), just that a lot of the Crypto currency cheerleaders list it as a feature.
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you'll either get hyper inflation as an unlimited supply is created instantly or you'll get a heavily manipulated currency that a few players control by handling out stakes. The point of "proof of work" is to make things more egalitarian, which is one of thing features crypto currency proponents champion. Take that away and all you've got is a pyramid scheme or an out of control loop spewing coins.
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Facebook has no more use for a cryptocurrency than PayPal ever has. The currency is controlled by a single entity so there's no trust problem to solve, and therefore no potential gain from the immense amount of resources that would need to be expended to run a blockchain (storage at best, and also heaps of processing power at worst). The relatively glacial pace of blockchain transactions would also be for naught.
If Facebook were just using cryptocurrency buzzwords to generate hype around yet another plain-jane online payment system, that would actually make a lot more sense.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
They would buy Kik and simply take over the Kin coin, which already is aimed at precisely what I imagine a FB coin will try to do (i.e. currency "bonuses" and microtransactions for various online participation activities (shopping at a store, playing a game, viewing an ad, etc.) and already has a drop-in website/app widget just about ready to be released. It also does not have to be mined and has an absolutely enormous pre-existing supply (10 Trillion coins), meaning that the currency values won't inflate to the astronomical values that Bitcoin et al. have, keeping it useful for casual online transactions.
Are (any) fiat-currency and (any) cryptocurrency really equivalent, as cryptocurrency fans claim?
For example, US Dollar and Bitcoin are really equals?
Value/validity/authorization of US dollar is provided/guaranteed by US Government (and in-turn whole US Public)!
Also, not to mention, US Dollars in any US Bank is insured by US Government!
What authorization/guarantee/insurance is behind Bitcoin? Nothing!
Sorry but that is the end of discussion then!
Why do you think Satoshi Nakamoto is really hiding his identity, if Bitcoin is really such a great innovation?
He is just someone does not like media/fan attention?
Or, could it be really because Bitcoin (and all cryptocurrencies followed it) are actually Ponzi Schemes?
(So he knew very well that law enforcement would come after him sooner or later?!)
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really good innovation, why they attract so many criminals/criminal activity?
Could it really be because, all cryptocurrencies themselves are scams, and that is why they attract all kinds of criminals/criminal activity?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really currency, why no company/store can use Bitcoin as currency anymore?
Because the price of Bitcoin proved to be extremely unstable to use as a currency?
Would the result be different, if Bitcoin replaced by any other "cryptocurrency"?
Aren't all work the same way?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really money; isn't people issuing their own money, illegal already, in all countries?
If so then, why they are still not banned in all countries?
Or, they are not actually virtual currency but virtual investment?
But, if they are actually investment, why we need/want them?
What would happen to world economy, if people invested in virtual investments, instead of real investments?
Or, all so-called cryptocurrencies are actually just a modified (made decentralized and paying variable interest) Ponzi Schemes?
(Price of cryptocurrencies would keep increasing in the long term (by their design), so it is equivalent of paying variable interest to all long term investors.)
As more and more people invest in cryptocurrencies, it will become harder and harder to ban their trading everywhere!
All cryptocurrencies need to be banned globally before it is too late!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The headline is misleading. It sounds like Facebook actually wants to leverage blockchain technologies to accomplish tasks, and provide value/security for their services. That is distinct from a "cryptocurrency." The latter makes use of a distributed ledger (typically a blockchain, more in a second) to create a medium of exchange. This medium of exchange is essentially a commodity, like gold (difficult to acquire, with a limited supply), which is traded to settle debts (i.e. buy stuff), a function typically performed using money. In other words a cryptocurrency is a commodity being used as money. For whipper snappers this is a foreign concept. For old farts like myself, we still recall the days when gold was used as a common medium of exchange in the barter system. "Money" was invented to make payments easier, because large amounts of gold are bulky, and heavy. Instead paper was traded, initially the paper notes were issued by "banks" (I use that term loosely), and that paper could be redeemed from said issuer for gold. That function was eventually taken over by governments, first state, then federal. The US dollar was backed by gold from 1879 to 1933. A cryptocurrency is the electronic equivalent of this system.
What makes cryptocurrencies possible is the invention of "blockchain" technology. A blockchain is essentially a public ledger that has been distributed. What's unique is how the blockchain uses cryptography to ensure a consensus among untrusted parties over what transactions are on the blockchain, and thus valid. That is the "proof of work" idea, whereby the network only accepts blocks which included the requisite proof of work. Cryptographic signatures are used to create transactions, where a signed transaction transfers a given unit from one private key to another. The holder of the associated private key is in essence the holder of the units, as anyone with access to the private key can create valid transactions which transfer (or spend) that unit. The blocks themselves are linked together cryptographically, using hashes, such that a modification to a given block would invalidate all of the blocks that follow it. That is why we talk about confidence in transactions, which that confidence governed by the number of blocks which follow it.
It's worth noting that many cryptocurrencies don't use true blockchains to record transactions. They only use cryptographically signed transactions to validate transfer. These are essentially gift cards, as the ledger can be altered, modified, etc, if the group in charge wants it.
Like I said above, with bitcoin, and most cryptocurrencies, you can see every transaction that has ever been made, and how much was transferred. If you determine who controlled the addresses (aka private keys), you know who was behind a transaction. This is incredibly easy. That is why, I exclusively hold and use Monero, which is an improvement on the original blockchain concept (aka bitcoin) which makes use of cryptography to validate, but also mask transactions. This provides significantly more privacy.
How many Rubles in a Zuckerbuck?
or maybe a system based on how many likes your coin got
Fail!
There's already plenty of crypto-currencies out there, some are even targeted toward social networks usage such as Reddcoin.
#DeleteFacebook
All the talk in this article is about blockchain, not any coin offering. A coin isn't required to use blockchain for something.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Or, to put it differently, how could Facebook possibly get any worse?
Well, after exhausting other ideas for making messenger less useful, they could make it mine FaceCoin!
It should be named Facebook Universal CryptoKoin or FUCK on the exchanges.
Silence is a state of mime.
and after that, add a coat of kubernetes.
... or a red herring perhaps.
;-)
... hmm ....
Companies are trying to leverage the decentralization of blockchain tech for stuff that is unrelated to mining - cf. https://cointelegraph.com/news/walmart-is-ready-to-use-blockchain-for-its-live-food-business . Facebook is probably looking to do so as well, maybe something like use blockchain voting to evaluate its news articles and sift thru the fakes better
There doesn't seem much point to them jumping into actual crypto mining, unless there is some new tie-up with nVidia and they get a cut of every graphics card bought by FB accounts for FB credits
Not the real deal. Nice try, though.
cryptocurrency != blockchain
He's not gonna win
What did we do before facebook?
A significant part was doing MySpace.
Why do we have to run to anything?
Mostly because of FOMO.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]