Just a sleezeball move in my opinion to capitalise on the hard work the crypto community has been putting in to make safe trustworthy decentralised systems. That's in no way saying there isn't sleeze balls in the community, but there are real believers about the whole idea that have been working hard.
There are many legitimate uses for a cross-border currency that has a strong backer. There is a ton of services (like Skrill) that try to bridge the gap for a big portion of the world un-banked.
I say "legitimate" because the uses are fine within the US/EU (holding a "hard" currency like the USD). But many countries around the world prohibit that. If Facebook currency ignores that (given their size), they can access these markets.
This is, maybe, a trillion dollar market.
People here have been ignoring crypto because they don't understand the effects on closed economies. Small online-banks have failed because of difficult regulations and name recognition. Facebook might make it because they have a strong brand, big audience and can battle whole countries.
Here’s what I think: any alternative currency tied to the USD (meaning a currency without intrinsic value) is DOA. The next generation currency cannot be tied to resource constraints.
That, once again, is a very America centric view. A place where banks must be even worse than taxis.
Within the Euro area (and associated coutries, like Switzerland), at least, SEPA transfers are quick and cheap, if not free.
Edit to add: Even the developing world has fast and efficient money transfer schemes. Look up M-PESA, for example.
FedWire transfers are instantaneous and cheap if not free at many institutions. The “bank transfers are slow and expensive” argument is financially illiterate.
> Keynes was able to make his proposal the official British proposal at the Bretton Woods Conference but it was not accepted. Rather than a supranational currency, the conference adopted a system of pegged exchange rates ultimately tied to physical gold in a system managed by the World Bank and IMF. In practice, the system implicitly established the United States dollar as a reserve currency convertible to gold at a fixed price on demand by other governments. The dollar was implicitly established as the reserve by the large trade surplus and gold reserves held by the US at the time of the conference.
They also say in 5 years will provide full(r/w) access to the public clients/nodes...I wouldn't hold my breath.
It has "fraud" prevention built in, charge backs, compliance etc...how would that work on a public blockchain? I believe they lie and they know it will never be released as a public/permisionless blockchain.
All full nodes on that blockchain are going to be owned by FaceBook. FB will be able to see all transactions and take money from people they don't like.
The fact that they print the money can only be good because that's how a stable coin is supposed to work, right?