{"id":17492,"date":"2020-10-02T16:10:03","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T16:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?page_id=17492"},"modified":"2021-11-27T00:39:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T00:39:01","slug":"libra","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/libra\/","title":{"rendered":"Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

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From Libra to Diem:
\nSilicon Valley tries to disrupt the world \u2014 and the world says \u201cno.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Facebook: the biggest social network in history. A stupendous, world-shaping success. But governments were giving Facebook trouble over personal data abuses, election rigging and fake news.<\/p>\n

Mark Zuckerberg wondered: what if Facebook could pivot to finance? Or, better: what if Facebook started its own private world currency?<\/p>\n

Facebook could have so much power that governments couldn’t stop them. It would be the Silicon Valley dream.<\/p>\n

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Facebook launched Libra in June 2019. Libra would be an international currency and payment system. It would flow instantly around the world by phone. It could even \u201cbank the unbanked.\u201d Libra could apparently do all this just by using a “blockchain.”<\/p>\n

But Libra would also make Facebook too big to control \u2014 and lead the way for Facebook’s Silicon Valley fellows to swing the power of their money as they pleased. Facebook and their friends could work around any single country’s rules. Libra could shake whole economies.<\/p>\n

And Facebook would become the “digital identity” provider to the world. If you wanted to use money at all, you’d have to go through Facebook.<\/p>\n

Governments looked at Libra \u2014 and they saw another 2008 financial crisis in the making. Facebook\u2019s plan would have made the company even more entrenched \u2014 at the cost of broken economies worldwide. Starting with toppling the US dollar.<\/p>\n

Libra was as incompetent as it was arrogant \u2014 and the world stopped it in its tracks. But how did Facebook put forward such a bizarre and ill-considered plan, that left every regulator who saw it reeling in horror?<\/p>\n

And what happens when another company tries the same trick? Or when Facebook won’t take “no” for an answer, and releases the cut-down version that they’re already calling “Libra 2.0”, or “Diem”?<\/p>\n

\u201cLibra Shrugged\u201d is the story of a bad idea.<\/p>\n

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Also covered:<\/p>\n