Facebook: Social Media Giant to Financial Institution?

Facebook will be launching their own cryptocurrency in the coming days, known as Project Libra.

"...this is a major initiative for Facebook, and one that has the potential of putting the company front and center in areas beyond advertising, including commerce and financial services, materially expanding its total addressable market and growth prospects,” analysts at SunTrust said. “It reduces the potential for regulatory scrutiny and opposition on anti-trust grounds (especially in the current environment), given Facebook’s consortium approach and the varied nature of the partners."

Their project has been backed by many big names according to CNBC, including Visa and Mastercard. However, Facebook has had a lot of issues with protecting the privacy of its users. Would you trust them in the financial space? How do you see this impacting Facebook's reach as a whole? Any other thoughts?

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My thoughts are that I'm sure it could become a profitable venture for Facebook, et al, but I don't see the market need for cryptocurrency. I may be the person in 2007 saying that he doesn't see the need for a smartphone, but I really cannot see an actual, legitimate, mass-scale user use for a cryptocurrency. Time after time I've been presented with reasons people may or will be interested in using a cryptocurrency, and time and again I've been able to poke holes in these theories. The Facebook Libra is even more ridiculous as it is backed by regular currencies, which means that it's barely a cryptocurrency--it's basically akin to casino chips.

Until someone can show me a specific manner in which a cryptocurrency is superior to a currency backed by the full might of the U.S. armed forces and 2+ centuries of perfect credit then all I see are a bunch of cyrptocurrency scams meant to make profit off of speculation.

I'll issue a challenge to anyone here--show me a use of cryptocurrency OR the Libra for the mass consumer that I can't poke a hole in.

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