Libra has sparked a discussion within the Rehive team. Is Libra good or bad? What does Libra mean for bitcoin? Where does Rehive fit in?

We shared some initial thoughts last week, here. In the meantime we’ve opened the floor for our team to share their opinions, predictions and ideas about what Libra means for the world and our company.

It certainly is an exciting time to work on financial products. Our plan is to Tweet these thoughts throughout July, dubbing it #LibraJuly. We’d love to hear what you think too.

1. Bitcoin is designed to replace the financial system. Libra is designed to boost the existing financial system. It seems like both are important.
2. Bitcoin likely presents a better financial system because it does not have an authoritarian nature. Competition and freedom to choose are most important. Facebook is definitely bringing something fresh to the table.
3. The existing financial system was designed in a time when there was limited technology available. We had to rely on humans to oversee things. Over time, this oversight has become too powerful. New ideas are often shut down when they threaten existing systems or organizations. Satohsi found a workaround. Bitcoin will allow people to opt out (to some degree, and this degree is increasing) of any financial system which they don’t like e.g. those in which people or governments are making stupid decisions.
4. Libra will have a measurable impact on billions of people if it succeeds in onboarding everyone to financial services. This really opens the door for Rehive to provide an application layer to build products on Libra.
5. Libra will likely not allow non-custodial wallets for a while if they intend on playing along with regulators.
6. Libra seems cooler than Ripple, because banks are not in the circle. However, the technology seems pretty much the same. Facebook has a lot of experience building consumer facing products, so they’ll most likely help the community to build sexy stuff.
7. A fully centralized global technology enabled financial system will already be better than paper money. Libra is perhaps not fully decentralized, but it is technology enabled, so that’s good and progressive.
8. Banks will probably start to support Facebook OAuth. Users will opt in with their Facebook accounts to streamline bank onboarding. Banks will get a revenue share for lead origination. And so it begins.
9. Messenger seems to be a pretty good interface for financial products. I can imagine that Libra + Messenger will be a killer interface for Facebook to partner with existing banks and financial service providers.
10. The hardest problem for Ethereum is to bring Proof of Stake to life. It will be interesting to see if Facebook engineers will crack these problems and whether either Facebook or Ethereum will benefit from each others’ breakthroughs.
11. Employees at Facebook should be aware of the responsibility they’re taking on in the pursuit of building the financial infrastructure of the world and the intended or unintended consequences thereof.
12. It would have been cool if Facebook launched Libra on Stellar. Perhaps Google, Amazon or IBM would consider doing that in the near future.
13. Popular question for Bitcoiners: What will the killer app be? Can we assume that Calibra will be the killer app for Libra? What are the chances of someone else building a better product within 6 months of Libra launching?
14. Libra is not changing the financial system, they’re just upgrading it with technology and accelerating adoption of 2 billion people. If governments allow Libra, it is because there is something in it for them and for the banks.
15. Libra is sparking a moral dilemma: is it okay to help the poor while making the powerful even more powerful? Countries that control the underlying asset will benefit significantly from mass adoption of Libra.
16. Emerging markets are not the Banks’ forté because it is hard to make money with ‘basic needs products’ like money transfer, savings, ATM’s. E.g. in Africa many rural towns are super remote and it is expensive to distribute cash to ATM’s, mail new debit cards, etc.
17. Cash in and cash out of Libra will remain expensive. Due to the existing channels-to-market, Facebook will likely onboard millions of users with Libra balance who are locked in because it is too expensive to take your money out.
18. Only a handful of tech giants can compete with 2 billion users at their fingertips.
19. Facebook will most likely not overstay their welcome to compete with banks directly, but instead partner with existing banks and financial services companies. If they do this, banks will keep the government happy and allow Libra to exist.
20. Bitcoin struggled with adoption in emerging markets due to low internet connectivity, network scaling, transaction fees and user interface complexities. Libra is designed to solve this. In addition, Facebook will likely make revenue share deals with banks on free internet connectivity to accelerate banking services.
21. Bitcoin, Ethereum and others offered a built-in incentive for the early contributors to invest their time and expertise into something they have a strong belief in. Libra will spark interest from banks and financial service providers to allocate serious budget to cryptocurrency and blockchain engineering. What will Libra do to incentivise external innovation and level the playing field?
22. Libra is good news for bitcoin on the long run. More people will hear about cryptocurrencies and learn how to get started.
23. Paypal had the vision to create a global currency. They got far, but did not fully succeed. Libra has the vision to create a permissionless distributed ledger network, but will probably only launch a global currency. This is still good.
24. Bitcoin introduced a breakthrough alternative financial system. It has taken off, but still faces distribution challenges where it is needed most. Facebook can solve distribution. If Libra takes off, bitcoin will likely continue to grow.
25. Everyone building on Libra will have to deal with user experience challenges, just like any crypto project. The moment you talk about the 2 billion unbanked people it is hard to imagine that the world is ready for non-custodial financial services.
26. Banks have kept an eye on exploring crypto products, but in most cases decided against it to protect their brand against any scandals of price volatility, scams, hacks, fraud and crime. Libra does not carry this baggage.
27. Libra is a huge opportunity for retailers and telcos with existing prepaid distribution networks to exchange cash for Libra.
28. Libra will probably replace all currencies in emerging markets over the next 10 years.
29. Companies will build awesome anti fraud and corruption products on Libra.
30. Libra will threaten remittance companies the most. The big question is really what is in it for Visa and Mastercard? It seems like Libra will make their business model obsolete. Perhaps Visa and Mastercard will continue to thrive on their credit cards and not so much on debit card payments.
31. The question is still, will Libra make the world libre ;-)