Libra — sometimes referred to as “Facecoin” or “Zuckcoin” — is self-billed as “a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people.” The introduction waxes cypher-poetic about the liberating nature of the internet and the potential for an online currency to unfetter financially disenfranchised populations around the world from the shackles of the inefficient and parasitic banking system.
“The world truly needs a reliable digital currency and infrastructure that together can deliver on the promise of ‘the internet of money.’”
— Facebook Libra white paper
If it sounds like “Facecoin” is hijacking Bitcoin’s narrative as an open and global monetary system, it’s because it is. But just because Libra is talking Bitcoin’s game doesn’t mean this digital currency will actually compete with the grandpappy of cryptocurrency or fulfill the same role. There’s next to nothing in the white paper that indicates it will resemble Bitcoin in function, structure or design. In reality, its real competitors are the tirelessly proliferating mass of stablecoins, any number of overly abundant and redundant altcoins, permissioned banker blockchains and smart-contract platforms — oh, and the traditional banking sector, both public and private.
The Libra white paper dropped at 5:00 a.m. EST today, June 18, 2019, and as Nic Carter said on Twitter, we’ve already reached peak “Libra saturation.” You can hardly scroll through Twitter without being slapped in the face by Libra takes. Nonetheless, here are a few takeaways from Facebook’s foray into blockchain technology. Namely, it’s a lot of what we expected and a little of what we didn’t. And the white paper left about as many (or more) questions as it addressed.
Is Libra a Cryptocurrency?
Above, I called Libra a
