I thought you would like to know what the cryptosphere is thinking about Facebook Coin ‘Libra’. There are a lot of different views out there but I will do my best to summarise.
Let me start by introducing you to Naomi Brockwell aka ‘bitcoin girl’. Naomi lives in NYC and is very well known and respected in the cryptosphere. Please watch here her video summary.
Now, some of the things she mentioned need explaining.
1. FB with >2bn users per day is the king of ‘Surveillance Capitalism‘ (they have our data which they sell). There are issues if they now will also have our financial data, or at least part of it.
2. At the core of blockchain technology is decentralisation of governance. There are already a decentralised facebook projects. Bitcoin/Ethereum etc are decentralised money. Libra coin is also a way for FB to protect their existing platform from decentralised versions (What next for Google? (Consider Brave and BAT (which we hold in our fund) is a decentralised version of Google).
3. It’s all about Monetary policy. Libra is backed by a basket of fiat currencies so therefore value is tied to fiat. Bitcoin/Ethereum have known fixed supply.
4. FB will face head on regulatory issues with issuing their own money, this is good for crypto generally as it brings forward the inevitability of Govt. engagement/regulation, this will be very interesting to watch. See good summary of Govt reactions to Libra here.
My view overall is that Libra is good news for crypo in general for the following reasons.
1. Now >2bn people a day will have exposure to the term cryptocurrency, it will not seem so strange to consider other types of crypto. As Naomi says ‘…get people thinking differently about money and then show them what the options are…’. Libra is a on-ramp for crypto generally.
2. FB (and their consortium) taking on the establishment (by that I mean the banks and the Govt.) is a fairish fight in terms of power and resources…and support from society/community.
SO IN SUMMARY, we now have two major, and I think historical, touch points between the crypto world and existing financial systems. Bakkt (et al) on the institutional side (I wrote about this a few weeks back) and FB on the retail side.
I have never been more bullish about the future of blockchain/crypto tech, watch here a video this week by CEO of Digital Currency Group (the Berkshire Hathaway of blockchain), our Fund is a client of DCG Genesis Trading.