Facebook Says Libra Isn’t Really a Currency After All

David Marcus, the grand poobah of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency effort, made a startling suggestion to Coins2Day’s Robert Hackett for his feature in the new issue of the magazine, published online this morning. “If I had to do it all over again,” says Marcus, the onetime president of PayPal, “I would probably just focus on what this thing really is, which is a new payment system.” Emphasizing that Facebook was promoting the creation of a “new currency,” says Marcus, “created more emotions than were really warranted.”

On the face of it, this is no trivial assertion. Regulators, legislators, privacy advocates, central bank officials, and other people who like to get upset about Facebook have been agitated over everything about Libra. From the moment Facebook debuted the “Libra Association,” a consortium of companies and other organizations organized by Facebook, there have been legitimate fears that Facebook wanted to go around the government-run systems of currencies that have been in place for the entirety of modernity.

Facebook, it seemed to some, was playing into the libertarian nonsense that because governments are bad, slow, and stupid, alternative currencies “mined” by computers would be a better solution. Never mind that uses for existing cryptocurrencies primarily are confined to speculation, pornography, and criminality. Facebook would do it better.

The trust gap, of course, between Facebook and everyone not in the Russian security agencies proved too high. Now Facebook is telling us that it didn’t plan to offer a currency at all. It merely was proposing a payment system in the same way Tencent and Alibaba (and PayPal) have. Well, goshdarnit, they should have just said so.

The facts suggest that Facebook has far more in mind than a payment system. And it’s hard to see how calling Libra something other than a new currency will make its critics warmer to the notion.

Adam Lashinsky

Twitter: @adamlashinsky

Email: [email protected]

This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.

NEWSWORTHY

Closing the book. Settling an investigation that began in 2017, Uber agreed to create a system to identify serial sexual harassment offenders and to pay $4.4 million to employees who were harassed.

Closing the book, part two. Speaking of Uber, being the Uber or Airbnb of this or that isn't working out everywhere. Car2go, the car sharing service run by Daimler and BMW, said it's pulling out of all North American markets, though it's still active in 18 European cities. The company said it was "not in a position to commit to the level of investment necessary" to stick with it.

My eyeballs are buzzing. Putting the streaming wars in perspective, Variety reports that Netflix created 371 original TV shows and movies this year, exceeding the output of the entire TV industry as recently as 2005. However, about one-quarter of the total was aimed at non-U.S. Markets, blurring the comparison a bit. Speaking of streaming, more than 100 public television stations joined the revolution and will be carried on Google's YouTube TV.

Getting the band back together. Top smart-home device makers Apple, Amazon, and Google have joined together to create a new interoperability standard called "Connected Home over IP," or CHIP for short. One goal is to make it easier for other companies to create devices compatible with Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant. One such developer will certainly be furniture giant Ikea, which has made a big bet on smart home devices.

Bend it like Beckham. After Motorola's new RAZR folding smartphone, could Samsung be next? A leaked prototype appears to show a very similar clamshell design for an upcoming device from Samsung, which has already released the book-like Galaxy Fold.

And...scene. Securities regulators charged a former employee of Palo Alto Networks and four of his friends with insider trading. Janardhan Nellore used access to the company's computer network to gain knowledge about upcoming financial results, which he then shared with friends and used to make stock trades, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

We have another end of decade story for you, but with a twist. This isn't about anything that happened in the 2010s. Instead, Coins2Day asked all kinds of thought leaders for their thoughts on the ideas and trends that will shape the 2020s. Everyone from Whole Foods CEO John Mackey to famed genetic scientist Jennifer Doudna contributed. In a bookend to Robert Hackett's Libra story, World Economic Forum chair Klaus Schwab predicts that a "gold standard" of digital currency will emerge.

But a “gold standard” of digital currencies has not emerged—yet. The real opportunity lies in major guarantors of the financial system, such as central banks and governments, committing to a supranational form of money. Such new currency could facilitate international payments and include those people and small businesses that are currently unbanked in the financial system.

Indeed, the real promise lies not in New York, London, Singapore, or Tokyo, where most people and businesses already have ample ways to conduct business and transfer money. It lies in helping those who are unbanked in countries like India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, or the DRC. A stablecoin could make financial inclusion real. It would represent the new frontier of money. There has not been anything as exciting since Bretton Woods.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

What’s Behind the Great Big Billionaire Backlash? By Geoff Colvin

The Tech Arms Race Will Never End: Can the Rest of Us Ever Catch Up? By Clifton Leaf

10 Fantastic Digital Stories We Published This Year By Andrew Nusca

Boeing Made These Shrewd Moves to Fend off Investor Revolt. Will it Last? By Erik Sherman

BEFORE YOU GO

For the first time ever, all five of the 14-year-old middle-school students awarded prizes in the annual MASTERS National STEM Competition were girls. And their inventions are really cool.

Aaron Pressman

On Twitter: @ampressman

Email: [email protected]