We all knew this day was coming; surely the powers that be would not remain on the sidelines forever while the forces of decentralization chipped away at their profits, but now they have shown us their plan (or Trojan horse, as I see it) for a "decentralized" economy of scale: Libra.
Facebook along with the host of other players involved have gone to great lengths to disguise this platform as something similar to Bitcoin, or more accurately Ethereum with the use of similar smart contracts, when in reality it is more like a ripoff of the aforementioned platforms by a host of centralized powers acting harmoniously to in an attempt to secure their power for years to come. They are touting it as a way to provide economic services to those who are unable to access banks as if it's some noble effort and perhaps there will be some good to come of it, but I fear the opposite.
Take one look at the list of organizations participating in the project and you will see the clear alignment of corporate interests involved. Perhaps this is a good thing for blockchain technology being adopted by mainstream industry, but clearly Facebook and company are trying to pull users (programmers especially) from platforms such as Ethereum and even Steemit to Libra. Make no mistake, Facebook will soon begin monetizing user's posts with Libra coins for engagement exactly how Steemit is modeled. Facebook is doing the same thing they have done for years copying/buying up the competition. Right now their have their targets set on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Steemit, and many other. We have already seen the implications this project has in the crypto markets just upon it's announcement, and it wasn't even a surprise to many of us.
Really, how decentralized can Libra be if it takes a 10 million dollar investment and corporate approval to run a node and generate profits? Read the white paper(https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/) folks, they put it all out there in plain sight:
They tell you straight-up it isn't a permission-less platform, but that they are "working towards it" and also that the currency is only "pseudonymous" (meaning you won't know what's what, but Facebook will). They even have a reserve which is no doubt going to be a key feature they will tout having other most other platforms. I don't want to go into too much detail about it as my goal is to keep this article brief, but basically they will be holding fiat assets including government securities aside in a geographically distributed manner in order to stabilize the currency's value; read more about it here: https://libra.org/en-US/about-currency-reserve/#the_reserve
This is banking 2.0 folks courtesy of the Zuck himself. I realize I am sounding over cynical here, but this is clearly a wolf in sheep's clothing. This platform does not add any great innovations, but rather just copies existing technologies that are truly decentralized and centralize their corporate powers to sell it to the masses. It's not like people in 3rd world countries can't access Bitcoin, but they can access Libra, BS. Don't be fooled into thinking Libra is the same as other decentralized platforms. We need to promote Steemit now more than ever before Zuck can hit his favorite combo: ctrl-c, ctrl-v, del.
