FACEBOOK'S LIBRA CRYPTOCURRENCY

Gerry Tebben writes:

To read the complete article, see:
Faebook Plans Global Financial system based on Cryptocurrency (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/technology/facebook-cryptocurrency-libra.html)

Facebook has finally revealed plans for a cryptocurrency called Libra, one of the worst-kept secrets in the history of virtual money.

After six months of news leaks, the massive social network and 27 other partners are touting the Libra digital coin and Facebook's corresponding digital wallet, Calibra, as a way to make sending payments around the world as easy as it is to send a photo. The new currency—linked to a basket of major currencies, like the US dollar and perhaps the euro—could make it cheaper and easier to transmit money across borders, as well as to pay for things on the internet. The partners say they plan to launch the Libra ecosystem in the first half of next year.

If successful—a big, humongous if—Libra could bring millions of people into the digital financial system, allowing them to leapfrog costly banking infrastructure and avoid smaller, volatile currencies. It could also make Facebook's platform of 2.7 billion users (including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger) more powerful than ever, creating a new, widespread digital money that challenges scores of financial institutions.

Or it could sputter out, like so many overhyped projects that came before it. Consortiums with powerful partners can be unwieldy. Consumers might avoid it because of a lack of trust in a globe-spanning effort led by a Silicon Valley titan. Ambitions to bring bitcoin into the world of Wall Street have mostly fizzled.

But Facebook and its family of apps, which have more monthly active users than the populations of China and the US combined, occupy a unique place in human history. The Menlo Park-based company and its partners can learn from the shortcomings of other crypto projects.

Why is it called Libra?
The name was inspired by the Roman unit of weight measure, which was eventually used to mint coins, according to a spokeswoman. Libra the astrological symbol is the balance of justice, and phonetically it sounds like libre, which is French for free or freedom. The name is a combination of money, justice, and freedom.

To read the complete article on Quartz, see:
Behold Libra, the global cryptocurrency masterminded by Facebook (https://qz.com/1645838/facebook-unveils-libra-its-new-global-cryptocurrency/)

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