David Gerard

Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

WHEN FACEBOOK TRIED TO TAKE OVER THE MONEY

Silicon Valley tries to disrupt the world - and the world finally tells them "no."

Facebook: the biggest social network in the world, with intimate influence over its users' lives. A stupendous, world-shaping success.

But governments were on Facebook's case over privacy, abuse of personal data, election-rigging and fake news.

In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg wondered: what if Facebook could pivot to finance? Or, better: what if Facebook started its own private world currency?

Facebook could have so much power that governments couldn't annoy him any more. It would be the Silicon Valley dream.

Facebook launched Libra in June 2019. Libra would be a private international currency and payment system. It could even "bank the unbanked," for international development and globalization. Libra could apparently do all this just by using a "blockchain."

But Libra was really created to make Facebook too big to regulate - and to lead the way for Facebook's Silicon Valley fellows to swing the power of their money as they pleased.

Libra would be a cryptocurrency. It would flow instantly around the world by phone. It would be impossible to regulate; Facebook and their friends could work around any single country's rules. Libra could shake whole economies.

And Facebook would become the "digital identity" provider to the world. If you wanted to use money, you'd have to go through Facebook.

The financial regulators looked at Libra - and they saw another 2008 financial crisis in the making. Facebook's plan would have made the company even more entrenched - at the cost of broken economies worldwide. Starting with toppling the US dollar.

Libra was as incompetent as it was arrogant - and governments stopped it in its tracks.

But how did Libra fail so hard? How did Facebook put forward such a bizarre and ill-considered plan, that left every regulator who saw it reeling in horror?

What was Facebook thinking with Libra? 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"?

"Libra Shrugged" is the history of a fascinatingly bad idea.

Table of Contents

Introduction: When Facebook tried to take over the money 3 Chapter 1: A user's guide to Libra 6 Chapter 2: The genesis of Libra: Beller's blockchain 11 Chapter 3: To launch a Libra: Let's start a crypto 15 Chapter 4: Bitcoin: why Libra is like this 21 Chapter 5: The Libra White Papers 29 Chapter 6: Banking the unbanked 40 Chapter 7: The Libra Reserve versus economic stability 47 Chapter 8: Libra, privacy and your digital identity 60 Chapter 9: The regulators recoil in horror 65 Chapter 10: David Marcus before the US House and Senate 75 Chapter 11: July to September 2019: Libra runs the gauntlet 95 Chapter 12: October 2019: Libra's bad month 102 Chapter 13: Mark Zuckerberg before the US House 112 Chapter 14: November 2019: The comedown 124 Chapter 15: Central bank digital currencies 130 Epilogue: Libra 2.0: not dead yet 142 Appendix: 2010-2013: The rise and fall of Facebook Credits 149 Acknowledgements 155 About the author 156

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: David Gerard
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. November 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781393783862
• Artikelnr.: 60316500