<story><title>France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook&apos;s Libra</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cryptocurrency-france-german/france-and-germany-agree-to-block-facebooks-libra-idUSKCN1VY1XU</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lacker</author><text>But they don’t want to become a bank. They want to build a cryptocurrency. There are already hundreds of cryptocurrencies that operate in France and Germany, and the developers do not have to have banking licenses.</text></item><item><author>zaphirplane</author><text>I feel there is a conflation here. Facebook is free to apply for a banking license in countries they want to operate as a bank in. Facebook shouldn’t be able to circumvent banking over site and regulations by coming in as a technology company with fancy words.
The conflation here is Facebook isn’t being blocked form becoming a licensed bank in Germany - correct me if I’m wrong</text></item><item><author>nugget</author><text>Isn&amp;#x27;t the answer better consumer protections, though?  Rather than a ban on new technology that threatens the status quo.  If Facebook wants to be a bank, they should be subject to the banking regulators and there could be (should be) strong consumer protections preventing the type of corporate behavior you describe.</text></item><item><author>dpau</author><text>Last week I wanted to purchase a used item but discovered that, without warning or notification, Marketplace was deactivated from my Facebook account. My Facebook account is quite active, with posts, discussion in multiple groups, and hundreds of friends. I still have no clue as to what rule I triggered and no recourse to reactivate it. Now imagine that&amp;#x27;s my digital Libra bank account? No thanks.</text></item><item><author>blackbrokkoli</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section:&lt;p&gt;Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to some foobar in the last century, which I&amp;#x27;m sure everyone is aware of.&lt;p&gt;So if Facebook, 10x of Germany&amp;#x27;s population comes around the corner with a proposal akin to &amp;quot;Hey do you mind if we just skip the paperwork part and just control currency, while actually being a social media tech giant&amp;quot; there going to be up against every trick in the book. This is not hypocrite behavior because Germany allowed some fun regional currency project no one is aware of some time ago. This is much more protecting the idea of the German society.&lt;p&gt;And personally, as a German, I&amp;#x27;m really glad about it. You remember the hundreds of cases of worked with a scummy developer on an app once, now I&amp;#x27;m blocked out of my email and all my files stories? Now imagine that, but with &lt;i&gt;money&lt;/i&gt; and with a company who never even bothered to pretend it isn&amp;#x27;t evil - this is gonna be a no, thank you!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MrGman</author><text>With Libra, Facebook wouldn&amp;#x27;t just make itself a bank. It would make itself a central bank. A world wide central bank.&lt;p&gt;Libra = inventing a new fiat currency and then replacing a significant portion of other fiat currencies around the world through a cloak of &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re just here doing the next big thing, also App, p2p payments, online crypto AI blockchain social network Facebook &lt;i&gt;innocent whistling of a song&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;. As a little bonus, they would be selling the Libra nodes (that handle all the payment traffic) to third parties. Initially for 10 million USD per node. That way they can shift the blame of selling payment data to third parties away from Facebook, while still making money by giving third parties the right to do whatever they want with that payment data.&lt;p&gt;Having a banking license doesn&amp;#x27;t allow you to replace a countries&amp;#x27; fiat currency by some new invented token. The value of Libra in Europe would depend on a promise by an American tech company (led by 1 man). A promise to keep the value of the Libra tied to a predetermined basket of fiat currencies. Assuming that Libra would become popular, this would yield pretty much infinite international political and economical power to Mark Zuckerberg based on the mere perception of the possibility that this promise could be broken by him. This is also why Libra is not comparable to an actual crypto currency like Bitcoin. The value and existence of Bitcoin and the Bitcoin network is not dependent on 1 man and the contracts he has with Bitcoin nodes.&lt;p&gt;Germany and France aren&amp;#x27;t stupid. I guess.&lt;p&gt;Those are my thoughts on what&amp;#x27;s actually going on.</text></comment>
<story><title>France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook&apos;s Libra</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cryptocurrency-france-german/france-and-germany-agree-to-block-facebooks-libra-idUSKCN1VY1XU</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lacker</author><text>But they don’t want to become a bank. They want to build a cryptocurrency. There are already hundreds of cryptocurrencies that operate in France and Germany, and the developers do not have to have banking licenses.</text></item><item><author>zaphirplane</author><text>I feel there is a conflation here. Facebook is free to apply for a banking license in countries they want to operate as a bank in. Facebook shouldn’t be able to circumvent banking over site and regulations by coming in as a technology company with fancy words.
The conflation here is Facebook isn’t being blocked form becoming a licensed bank in Germany - correct me if I’m wrong</text></item><item><author>nugget</author><text>Isn&amp;#x27;t the answer better consumer protections, though?  Rather than a ban on new technology that threatens the status quo.  If Facebook wants to be a bank, they should be subject to the banking regulators and there could be (should be) strong consumer protections preventing the type of corporate behavior you describe.</text></item><item><author>dpau</author><text>Last week I wanted to purchase a used item but discovered that, without warning or notification, Marketplace was deactivated from my Facebook account. My Facebook account is quite active, with posts, discussion in multiple groups, and hundreds of friends. I still have no clue as to what rule I triggered and no recourse to reactivate it. Now imagine that&amp;#x27;s my digital Libra bank account? No thanks.</text></item><item><author>blackbrokkoli</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section:&lt;p&gt;Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to some foobar in the last century, which I&amp;#x27;m sure everyone is aware of.&lt;p&gt;So if Facebook, 10x of Germany&amp;#x27;s population comes around the corner with a proposal akin to &amp;quot;Hey do you mind if we just skip the paperwork part and just control currency, while actually being a social media tech giant&amp;quot; there going to be up against every trick in the book. This is not hypocrite behavior because Germany allowed some fun regional currency project no one is aware of some time ago. This is much more protecting the idea of the German society.&lt;p&gt;And personally, as a German, I&amp;#x27;m really glad about it. You remember the hundreds of cases of worked with a scummy developer on an app once, now I&amp;#x27;m blocked out of my email and all my files stories? Now imagine that, but with &lt;i&gt;money&lt;/i&gt; and with a company who never even bothered to pretend it isn&amp;#x27;t evil - this is gonna be a no, thank you!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>colejohnson66</author><text>Are we sure those crypto developers are acting within the law? Genuine question.</text></comment>