Facebook Crashes the Crypto Party

by Alan Goodman

Every new twist and turn in the emerging world of cryptocurrency brings discussion and debate. The latest news amps that debate to the max, because suddenly the elephant is in the room.

Hello Libra, we weren’t expecting you.

Libra is of course the proposal by Facebook, in league with many other large companies, to create a transactional coin backed by the Libra Reserve. Their proposal is that this be a system where the value of the coin is more or less stable and more free from speculation, so that it can useful as a medium of exchange worldwide. The white paper makes repeated reference to the project’s goal of benefiting billions of people around the world who do not have access to basic financial tools.

So far, plenty has been written about the proposal, certainly because Facebook is leading the charge. Even our president has weighed in to let us know he’s not a fan. Much of the debate has centered around trust (which is fair) and whether it is truly a cryptocurrency.

Let’s look at the second issue first.

A PERMISSIONED LEDGER? HMMMM.

Libra requires us to trust a central authority that has exclusive access to the ledger. That ledger will be permissioned, because the founders believe that’s the path they need to take to guarantee scale, stability and security (They say they will work toward a permissionless system within five years). Die-hard cryptocurrency adherents would argue this fact disqualifies Libra from being considered alongside other currencies, as the whole basis of bitcoin and other currencies is to remove that layer of permission — the banks, credit card agencies, payment processors, and… yes, governments — that add cost, delays, control, and security vulnerabilities to everyday transactions.

Because your personal identity is still masked by your wallet and you accomplish your transaction in much the same way as you would with cryptocurrencies, others would argue it does qualify as a cryptocurrency.

It’s an argument over definitions. What is more significant to examine is, what does Libra help you do?

A TRANSACTIONAL CURRENCY

Libra is designed to make it easier to spend and receive funds, anywhere in the world, from anywhere in the world, with limited noise and free from government-backed currencies that are subject to such things as political interference and trade policies.

And while Facebook is building it in open source — meaning anyone can launch a project on the Libra blockchain — there is really only one explanation for the company’s interest. That is, unless there has been a sudden turn in Menlo Park in favor of altruism.

Facebook and its partners (and it must be pointed out that Facebook is insisting it will be “one member among many”) are betting they can own digital currency for the world, the way Google owns search. Their play is, since most transactions these days are over the internet, we’ll happily choose Libra’s size for the access to markets and the ease in transacting it will enable. Most likely, we will be buying things we found out about on Facebook.

Many of us will swallow hard if this comes true.

• Do we want to sign on with a system that demands only a small number of managers control the ledger of transactions?
• Facebook’s entire business model is to mine your data to send you ads and sponsored content. Do we think this leopard can change its spots? What’s more, it has been a lousy protector of the data we’ve entrusted to the company and appears to have sold us out repeatedly.
• Remember when the Apple environment was relatively hacker free because it was “the little engine that could?” Size alone attracts attacks, and if Libra builds what it has described, it could be painting a big red target on its back.

OTHER SOLUTIONS EXIST

If Libra is measured by its aims, we have to recognize that tools exist today to accomplish what Libra wants to accomplish. Third party distributed apps, such as the Aeryus payment system that includes Aeryus ChainPayments, can be the transactional system for anyone, anywhere. Anything you encounter through a Facebook ad or a Google search can be purchased through Aeryus running behind the scenes processing any viable currency you own. What’s more, the Aeryus two-coin system creates a receipt of every transaction tied to the blockchain forever, locked to the purchaser and virtually impossible to duplicate, change, or counterfeit. That makes it a perfect system for delivering downloads and other digital content you want to protect.

Clearly, we all want freedom from the identity thieves and fraudulent schemers who keep coming up with new ways to attack our “trust-based” banking and transaction system. And while Facebook is how much of the world communicates today, its shortcomings have spawned all kinds of innovations by others to answer those vulnerabilities.

That said, given Libra’s stated goal of being open-source, it’s entirely possible Aeryus ChainPayments and the company’s other encapsulated blockchain solutions could run on the Libra network. After all, Aeryus is engineered to work with any blockchain, and will always seek the one that is most efficient and costs the least. Libra might be welcoming — the company’s white paper encourages participation and feedback.

We have to say — if the elephant has a heart, it is certainly in the right place. At Aeryus, we too are working toward a currency that is stable and relatively speculation-free. Not only do we discuss the possibility of lifting the lives of billions across the world, we are actively working toward that with our educational initiatives in Ghana and other parts of Africa.

Right now, Libra is doing us all a favor by getting talked about and researched by people who haven’t noticed yet what is happening in the cryptocurrency field. It’s also getting noticed (and critiqued) by legislators afraid of Facebook’s size and their potential to disrupt existing financial markets.

As their model is considered and poked at by experts and theorists, the hope is their proposal will spark other ideas and improvements, and will help legislators hone in on the kinds of restrictions and policies they’ll allow that will give us all much-needed guidance as we build and launch our products.

Check out our website: https://aeryus.com
Follow us on all our social media channels to keep up to date on all
things Aeryus!

Join our community on Telegram: https://t.me/Aeryus1
Telegram news channel. https://t.me/aeryusone
Looking for token info? https://aeryus.com/token
Follow us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aeryus_one
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AeryusOne
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeryus/
Aeryus is currently listed on IDEX. https://idex.market/eth/aer