Another Good Place The Libra Road Might End Up
By BlockStamp on Altcoin Academy
We’ll be honest:
We didn’t think governmental sentiments would be quite so negative towards Facebook’s new Libra crypto project.
Various regulators and politicians have expressed concern about it. Here’s one example from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), aka the “central bank of central banks.” This report warns about the potential monopoly powers of Big Tech, the importance of ensuring a level playing field, and so on and so forth. Typical politician-speak ;)
That reminds us of the famous saying — most accurately from American labor union advocate Nicholas Klein and probably not from Gandhi:
First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.
It sounds to us like governments are in the “ridicule” phase of this process. And ultimately they will end up saying how great the concept was! In other words:
National (Or Supranational!) Governments May Just Launch Their Own Versions Of The Libra.
Check out this great insight from Stanford Law Professor Joseph Grundfest:
My prediction is that regulators will not allow Libra to operate as a permissionless system because then no court or regulator will have the ability to exercise authority over the actual operation of the blockchain. It will then be impossible to implement any order or injunction issued by any legal system with any certainty. Crypto-purists will argue that the ability to avoid regulation by governmental authorities is the essence of a blockchain. However, the idea that regulators will willingly allow the evolution of a mechanism that is immune to state control and that facilitates the flow of billions of dollars a day, or hour, or minute, seems inconceivable to me, and likely to the regulators as well.
If that’s the case, will we ever see anything like Libra?
I certainly hope so. There is a real need for Libra-like functionality on the internet. Billions of people would benefit from the ability to transact through a system like Libra. Transactions costs could be reduced for every American, quite probably to the chagrin of MasterCard, Visa and other intermediaries who charge two percent or more on every transaction. A delicious irony here would be if Facebook’s Libra proposal stimulates the United States government to develop a functionality that operates like Libra, backed by U.S. dollar deposits, but operated by the U.S. government (or under the authority of the U.S. government) and available to everyone on equal terms with no advantage to Facebook, Google, Amazon or anyone else. My bet is that more than one presidential candidate makes that proposal in the not-too-distant future.
That says it all! Watch for governments to get in on this game soon!
Just Make Sure You See The Big Picture Behind The Things Governments “Build Monuments” To, i.e. Model Their Best Practices On.
We don’t necessarily mean physical monuments here.
Most physical monuments that governments build celebrate people or things that deserve immense respect at a basic level.
Take the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, for example. It commemorates soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to a higher purpose. Whether or not you agree with that higher purpose doesn’t really matter at a fundamental level.
Instead, consider the “institutional monuments” that governments respect by actually doing them. You might think them of “governmental best practices.”
These are things that probably don’t seem like anything special. Or that you might take for granted — because every government does it today. But that wasn’t always the case! Here are a few examples:
- National currencies. Money didn’t always use to come from governments :) Now they all do it!
- National identities. Yep, even “national identities” as we know they are only a few centuries old. Most historians consider Napoleonic France as the first real example. Now all governments promote them.
So it is just a matter of time before something like a state-sponsored version of the Libra project pop-ups somewhere.
We Think The Libra Project — Which Is Shaping Up To Be The Most Controversial, Politically Charged Crypto Project To Date — Will Be Net Positive For Average Folks.
This goes back to a point we made earlier. Crypto will push central banks and governments to treat their citizens better and offer more benefits for using a given official service.
That might mean — using Professor Grundfest’s example — that they have cheaper transaction fees and can move funds around more freely.
Ultimately, we think that the rise of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies is going to have just as big an impact on the “government playbook” as national currencies, nationalism, or maybe even the petrodollar.
And you don’t just have a front-row seat for the action — you can participate in it! Getting involved with BlockStamp is a great way to do so :)
About BlockStamp:
BlockStamp is a multipurpose Bitcoin blockchain fork developed to promote liberty, transparency, and sovereignty in areas of the digital economy where these fundamental values are most at risk. BlockStamp hosts a radically fair gambling edutainment platform, a digital tool for transparently sealing data, a censorship-proof internet Domain Naming System, and the BST crypto coin.
