And for those who doubt my prognostication powers, Ted Livingston of Kik blogged Facebook Isn’t Going After Bitcoin. It’s Going After the Dollar:
Disclosure: I have no inside knowledge of Facebook’s plans. This post is based on 10 years of experience in messaging and crypto. We think Facebook could be on a path to replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency. This post outlines how that might happen. We hope this post leads to a broader discussion on the impact Facebook and crypto could have on society, and what we might do about it
We never added broadcasting to our chat app Kik […] In 2014 I published a post The Race to Become the WeChat of the West. Nine months later WeChat invested 50 million dollars into Kik at a billion dollar valuation […]
Today 900 million people use WeChat for daily transactions, totaling nearly $10 trillion of payments per year.
In China WeChat replaced cash.
Right now we already know quite a few things about Facebook’s plans. We know they plan to offer stablecoin powered remittances.
We know they plan to start with Whatsapp. We know they plan to start in India.This makes perfect sense.
India receives more remittances each year than any other country in the world. Whatsapp is the most popular app in India. And a stablecoin allows money to move on the blockchain without the risk of it becoming more or less valuable than the local fiat currency.
As India gains momentum Facebook could look to expand. First into other countries where remittances are popular. Perhaps the Philippines and Egypt, followed by Mexico and Vietnam.
Initially they will cash them out for life’s daily expenses. But just like what WeChat did in China, Facebook will add more and more ways to spend money directly inside their apps: paying utility bills, getting food at restaurants, topping up phone minutes, and more. New ways of spending money through the app will become simpler and more powerful than the previous alternatives. Soon enough there will be no reason for anyone to take their money out.
The End of the Dollar
People who understand crypto might argue that this doesn’t matter. That because the value of a Facecoin is pegged to the value of a dollar, they are essentially just dollars that run on a blockchain. To me this is the most important part. Not that long ago the world’s reserve currency was gold, where the value of a dollar was pegged to the value of gold. But then one day the US decided to unpeg the dollar from gold, paving the way for the dollar to replace gold as the world’s reserve currency. So here is my question: what will stop Facebook from doing the same?
In this last paragraph Ted misses part of the plot, which is to gradually transition the dollar backing to a reserve basket which includes perhaps predominantly legacy Bitcoin.
https://steemit.com/libra/@anonymint/facebook-s-libra-bitcoin-trump-israel-666-orwellian-dystopia
Alternative links to the same blogs are:
https://busy.org/@anonymint/facebook-s-libra-bitcoin-trump-israel-666-orwellian-dystopia
Oh and in recent news Netflix earmarks $420M to fight Disney in India:
The big, big, big Indian market
India has emerged as one of the last great growth markets for global technology and entertainment firms. About half of the nation’s 1.3 billion population is now online and the country’s on-demand video market is expected to grow to $5 billion in the next four years, according to Boston Consulting Group.
But the propensity — or the capacity — of most of these internet users to pay for a subscription service remains significantly low. Most services operating in India today generate the majority of their revenue from ads. And others, which rely on a recurring model, are making major changes to their offerings in the nation.
RE: Facebook’s Libra + Bitcoin + Trump + Israel = 666 Orwellian Dystopia