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Comment by shitgoose | Hacker News Reader

the moment libra is exchanged for fiat, it is under scrutiny (know your client etc). fbi routinely nails various e-gold enterprises, where clients exchange fiat for tokens and freely transact tokens across the globe. all it takes is to open a couple of libra accounts and send a transaction with "hurt as many americans as possible" in the details. a lot of people were busted for a lot less than that.

imagine high volume small denomination libra transactions between florida and colombia - fb will spend the rest of their days trying to explain to fbi they didn't mean no harm.

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The FBI has no jurisdiction outside the US and you are right that cash is more safe to use for buying cocaine, ordering hit men, buying child pornography, etc. Libra is probably not going to be popular for that sort of thing. The irony of a distributed ledger is that it actually makes enforcement a lot easier. Facebook will simply point to the ledger and tell the FBI that "everything you need to know is public information". FB is also uniquely positioned to facilitate all the required KYC and AML processes.

The reason governments are worried about Libra is not his but the fact that people might choose to no longer exchange for fiat. If you are transacting and earning Libra, why would you swap for dollars/euros and pay the transaction fees for that? This is a much bigger concern for governments than the black market economy.

"The FBI has no jurisdiction outside the US"

tell this to Vinnik, a Russian national who was arrested in Greece on behalf of FBI and extradited to US:)

if FB starts enforcing KYC, then the adoption will be very narrow - US and few other developed countries. even in US i doubt that many people will be happy to share their driver's licences and bank accounts with FB for obvious reasons. and without wide adoption there will be no libra "closed system" as you described. this is catch 22. i don't see how FB can pull this off. i don't even see any clear strategy behind libra.

You should really update your stereotypes.

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