Cryptocurrency and Remittences

[googol.star]

Why is the Libra dream dead? (Which I hope it is.)

Maybe because it's backers are withdrawing from the project and Facebook's prime market US doesn't like Libra's concept.
For the use of remittance, bitcoin could still be a good option. Though it's fee seems large for small transactions, it's much better than swift fees or western union fees for sending remittance. There are other options like lightning network or the BEP2 token from binance but it would depend on the parties involved more than the choice of currency.

Thank you. Yeah, I just read that all of their partners are backing away from it. I just don't trust facebook so I'm glad.

[1714583887]

1714583887

[NathanJB]

Why is the Libra dream dead? (Which I hope it is.)

Maybe because it's backers are withdrawing from the project and Facebook's prime market US doesn't like Libra's concept.
For the use of remittance, bitcoin could still be a good option. Though it's fee seems large for small transactions, it's much better than swift fees or western union fees for sending remittance. There are other options like lightning network or the BEP2 token from binance but it would depend on the parties involved more than the choice of currency.

Thank you. Yeah, I just read that all of their partners are backing away from it. I just don't trust facebook so I'm glad.

Not all actually. I think only less than half of the members of their association have left out of heavy nudges by the governments. But it is enough for the others to lost interest in pursuing what they have started, at least for now. So far, I would conclude that the dream of the team will remain to be a dream, far from reality. There is no reason for them to force themselves into the market which is showing signs of repugnance to it.

[target]

Why is the Libra dream dead? (Which I hope it is.)

Maybe because it's backers are withdrawing from the project and Facebook's prime market US doesn't like Libra's concept.
For the use of remittance, bitcoin could still be a good option. Though it's fee seems large for small transactions, it's much better than swift fees or western union fees for sending remittance. There are other options like lightning network or the BEP2 token from binance but it would depend on the parties involved more than the choice of currency.

Thank you. Yeah, I just read that all of their partners are backing away from it. I just don't trust facebook so I'm glad.

Not all actually. I think only less than half of the members of their association have left out of heavy nudges by the governments. But it is enough for the others to lost interest in pursuing what they have started, at least for now. So far, I would conclude that the dream of the team will remain to be a dream, far from reality. There is no reason for them to force themselves into the market which is showing signs of repugnance to it.

Nothing so far has been said from the Libra association yet whether they will disassociate each other because of what is happening. I can only think of the lobbyist  facebook had hired to make some negotiations. One congress has expressed his support already for Libra, this is a sign that they may really be continuing what was planned.

There seem to have two parties not wanting facebook to pursue though, One is the crypto community itself and the government which they could easily come to terms. For crypto community, they can ignore all of us once they are approved. That's the only we can do but of course we can still convince the mass not to use libra.

[NathanJB]

Why is the Libra dream dead? (Which I hope it is.)

Maybe because it's backers are withdrawing from the project and Facebook's prime market US doesn't like Libra's concept.
For the use of remittance, bitcoin could still be a good option. Though it's fee seems large for small transactions, it's much better than swift fees or western union fees for sending remittance. There are other options like lightning network or the BEP2 token from binance but it would depend on the parties involved more than the choice of currency.

Thank you. Yeah, I just read that all of their partners are backing away from it. I just don't trust facebook so I'm glad.

Not all actually. I think only less than half of the members of their association have left out of heavy nudges by the governments. But it is enough for the others to lost interest in pursuing what they have started, at least for now. So far, I would conclude that the dream of the team will remain to be a dream, far from reality. There is no reason for them to force themselves into the market which is showing signs of repugnance to it.

Nothing so far has been said from the Libra association yet whether they will disassociate each other because of what is happening. I can only think of the lobbyist  facebook had hired to make some negotiations. One congress has expressed his support already for Libra, this is a sign that they may really be continuing what was planned.

There seem to have two parties not wanting facebook to pursue though, One is the crypto community itself and the government which they could easily come to terms. For crypto community, they can ignore all of us once they are approved. That's the only we can do but of course we can still convince the mass not to use libra.

For now, many of the members of the association are mum on the issues surrounding them and the decisions of their former fellow members that decided to yield to the advances of the government. Neither are they also vocal in their support to the project. They are playing the safest game.

The crypto community may not even be what is in the minds of libra. I think they thinking more of the several millions respective users of their own companies.

[Findingnemo]

Why is the Libra dream dead? (Which I hope it is.)

Maybe because it's backers are withdrawing from the project and Facebook's prime market US doesn't like Libra's concept.
For the use of remittance, bitcoin could still be a good option. Though it's fee seems large for small transactions, it's much better than swift fees or western union fees for sending remittance. There are other options like lightning network or the BEP2 token from binance but it would depend on the parties involved more than the choice of currency.

Thank you. Yeah, I just read that all of their partners are backing away from it. I just don't trust facebook so I'm glad.

Anything centralized should not be trusted because they can make changes if they want so giving them an upper hand will do more harm than good but I don't think Libra projects will be completely dropped,they will aim to launch it and also will spend millions to attract customers to use their service once they convince government or willing to pay huge taxes for allowing their service.

[Mometaskers]

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They've ruined their reputation with all those info dumps so no wonder everyone's ganging up on them. It seems to be "cool" to diss the company.

People also fear that their Libra wallets could just be as easily locked down like how an FB account can get locked for expressing "wrongthink" or being mass reported by bots. Certainly doesn't inspire confidence. I'd also like an alt that is better integrated with various platforms to easily perform things that bitcoin can be currently inefficient with but I wouldn't like it to be by Facebook.

I understand you and the rest of the huge populace that are seemingly afraid of what the name Facebook could bring to their wallets, information, location, etc. I even believe that the biggest factor why this project is like a dud from the very beginning is that it is being started by Facebook. It is the reason why the project is going to be a hard sell not just to the governments and their regulators but also to the rest of the common users.

I believe so, that's one reason that Congress was a bit hard on it. If it wasn't for scandals like Cambridge Analytica, they probably wouldn't have scrutinized it as closely.

Not to mention it's election season. These politicians likely saw how the public reacted to Zuckerberg and want to capitalize on that.

[Afnan_faizah]

Unlike bitcoin, the currency made by facebook has several limitations. Facebook is US based companies, companies like this will not be able to serve customers in countries that are subject to U.S. sanctions. Paypal and mobile banking are on threat now. facebook has up to two billion active monthly users, when those people use libra as the main currency for their transaction then paypal and mobile banking will lose their customer.

[davinchi]

That is the problem, if you want to use something small from altcoin list to have a faster and cheaper movement, you are not going to cash it out to fiat that easily, whats the point of changing money from person A to person B using something like nano first but then the person who gets the money turns that nano into bitcoin and then cashes out, it doesn't work unless you can cash out nano to fiat directly and easily.

It is why I feel like there is absolutely no reason to use anything other than bitcoin and ethereum, ethereum is usually capable of turning into fiat in many places as well so that works but that's about it, only a few places have litecoin as well because of the back in the day popularity of it but most new places don't have that neither.

[alyssa85]

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They've ruined their reputation with all those info dumps so no wonder everyone's ganging up on them. It seems to be "cool" to diss the company.

People also fear that their Libra wallets could just be as easily locked down like how an FB account can get locked for expressing "wrongthink" or being mass reported by bots. Certainly doesn't inspire confidence. I'd also like an alt that is better integrated with various platforms to easily perform things that bitcoin can be currently inefficient with but I wouldn't like it to be by Facebook.

I understand you and the rest of the huge populace that are seemingly afraid of what the name Facebook could bring to their wallets, information, location, etc. I even believe that the biggest factor why this project is like a dud from the very beginning is that it is being started by Facebook. It is the reason why the project is going to be a hard sell not just to the governments and their regulators but also to the rest of the common users.

I believe so, that's one reason that Congress was a bit hard on it. If it wasn't for scandals like Cambridge Analytica, they probably wouldn't have scrutinized it as closely.

Not to mention it's election season. These politicians likely saw how the public reacted to Zuckerberg and want to capitalize on that.

You have to wonder what would have happened if the new currency had been proposed by say Apple, instead of Facebook. There would have been no privacy issues because Apple is a hardware company. And no issue of people's wallets getting locked and so on. And Apple already has the Apple Pay wallet.

It's such a pity zuckerberg and his toxic ego invaded this space.

[SirLancelot]

Among altcoins, I have only seen ethereum that has survived so far and has some good number of investors too. Though it is not as potential a coin as bitcoin but a trustworthy one. No other altcoin has been able to replace it. Comparatively, bitcoin is a way too fast and profit promising, and the main purpose of dealing in coins is money. SO it is best to invest in bitcoin and not waste time here and there.

It would be quite hard for any of these other coins to be able to replace these top two coins, and of all the altcoins that is available till date, these two coins and top 10 coins may be the coin that will stay long in the market, and as this bear market is getting dip, lots of altcoins maybe going to zero and also dyeing off.

Bitcoin and Ethereum has a very strong system that people are already so used to for remittance and as days goes by, they will continue to gain more recognition. Ethereum as altcoins is still very much faster in transaction than every other coins, I think that Litecoin is so fast too because I have used Litecoin before and I don't think I was ever disappointed or regret using this coin also, so if they ask me to choose the best 3 coin that is suitable, I think it is btc, eth and ltc.

[alyssa85]

That is the problem, if you want to use something small from altcoin list to have a faster and cheaper movement, you are not going to cash it out to fiat that easily, whats the point of changing money from person A to person B using something like nano first but then the person who gets the money turns that nano into bitcoin and then cashes out, it doesn't work unless you can cash out nano to fiat directly and easily.

It is why I feel like there is absolutely no reason to use anything other than bitcoin and ethereum, ethereum is usually capable of turning into fiat in many places as well so that works but that's about it, only a few places have litecoin as well because of the back in the day popularity of it but most new places don't have that neither.

Recently I took a look at the Philippines cryptocurrency exchanges to see which coins they were listing.

https://bitpinas.com/cryptocurrency/list-cryptocurrency-exchanges-philippines/#list_of_cryptocurrency_exchange_philippines

It's mainly bitcoin and ethereum to the Peso, and some exchanges have litecoin and bitcoin cash listed as well. That's it.

There is a gap in the market for an alt with low fees, if it can get listed on the phillipines exchanges as well as on the western exchanges, so that remittences can happen directly, cutting out the middle man. (The person sending money from the US just sends the coins directly to their relative's crypto address on the philippines exchange where they can sell them for peso)

[alyssa85]

Update:

I found another very interesting (long) article about problems using cryptocurrencies in remittences:

https://www.saveonsend.com/blog/bitcoin-blockchain-money-transfer/

It had this little gem about Ripple:

Here is how HelloBit’s co-founder and CEO Ali Goss summarizes this conundrum in the insightful article by Bitcoin Magazine:

    “With bitcoin, you’re adding a third currency,” Goss said. “You go from U.S. dollar to bitcoin, and then from bitcoin to whatever the local currency is. You’re adding an extra FX move right there alone. That increases friction. On top of that, small startups don’t have a big FX department, and they don’t have the big abilities that come with such a department … they’re generating more costs for themselves, not less.”

The spreads are so high that even die-hard crypto cross-border players are using non-blockchain rails to complete transfers for those destinations. Yeap, you heard this right, EVERY so-called Bitcoin/blockchain money transfer startup pays banks to process a large portion, sometimes a majority, of its cross-border transfers. Here is ZipZap in this interview to CoinDesk:

    “ZipZap uses a combination of traditional (Swift) bank payment rails and blockchain technologies to find the least expensive and most efficient transfer option…”

But why would MoneyGram use Ripple/XRP and lose money on a double & more expensive conversion? Because Ripple now owns 10% of MoneyGram equity, because “scaling Blockchain” might fool some investors, and because it gets paid by Ripple to create an XRP liquidity in Mexico:



Therefore, rather than disrupt cross-border players or at least help them to serve unbanked, Blockchain players are using those firms to prop up their own printing press – any PR is a good PR as long as more naive consumers buy the made-up currency with otherwise no intrinsic value. Now you also understand why Facebook folks and their Silicon Valley friends were looking at this scheme and wanted in on the action with launching Libra.

At some point Ripple is going to get found out, and that will be the end of their centralised currency.