Historic Event unfolds: Mark Zukerberg Testifies before U. S. Congress.

Mark Zukerberg Testifies before U. S. Congress.

As many of you know Facebook’s Libra is the subject of a US Congress Investigation and Facebook Founder & CEO Mr Mark Zuckerberg has testified this week.

The following Mark Zuckerberg quotes have been making the news:

“I want to be clear: this is not an attempt to create a sovereign currency. Like existing online payment systems, it’s a way for people to transfer money.”
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“I understand we’re not the ideal messenger right now. We’ve faced a lot of issues over the past few years, and I’m sure people wish it was anyone but Facebook putting this idea forward.”
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“Libra will be backed mostly by dollars and I believe it will extend America’s financial leadership as well as our democratic values and oversight around the world. If America doesn’t innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed.”
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“While we debate these issues, the rest of the world isn’t waiting. China is moving quickly to launch similar ideas in the coming months… If America doesn’t innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed.”
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These quotes remind me of the review of the Libra Coin Summary in Bloomberg business news June 22nd, 2019 written by Joe Weisenthal, executive editor digital news at Bloomberg. The article is very well done, and here is a small excerpt of what I think are its main points:

For sure: Libra is being touted as a cryptocurrency, so it’s natural to use existing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum as mental models for what it could be. But it’s probably better to think instead about traditional peer-to-peer payment networks. Whether you’re talking about PayPal, Venmo, Square, WeChat, or even Western Union, all of these networks are in some way layered on top of the traditional financial system in order to ease some type of transaction (e-commerce, check-splitting, remittances). The problem is that these networks aren’t interoperable, and in many cases the fees can be quite high. Like all these other networks, Libra will be layered on top of the an existing financial system. But unlike these other networks, however, there is an opportunity to create payments unification on a global scale, and at a much lower cost. And in theory, anyone will one be able to build payment applications on top of Libra. Some might focus on friends splitting the cost of dinner. Others might be focused on remittance payments to developing markets. In the most extremely successful version of Libra, it’s not so much a cryptocurrency, but a global operating system for moving fiat money around.<
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This summary describes the Facebook’s Libra more as peer to peer payment network like PayPal instead of a cryptocurrency because, as it’s described, it’s mainly a way to move fiat from point A to point B, or more specifically person A to person B, anywhere in the world, in minutes, cheaply and with the ease, accuracy and reliability of the blockchain.

Think about that for a few minutes and how big that really is as a concept. We here at Steem already move wealth from Japan to America in minutes for free! And we don’t give it a second thought. But to the non-crypto world that would be Amazing! I move fiat in the non-crypto world often and I routinely wait 3-5 business days and I pay hefty fees.

I personally agree that the main attribute of Libra is to move fiat around. I see it as a brilliant attempt to use the advantages of the blockchain to allow people to transfer fiat around the globe cheaper and quicker then the existing banking system allows. And because it’s fiat to crypto at point A and crypto to fiat at point B the transaction could completely ignore fiat transfer laws and limits. But it appears that multiple governments want to stop this feature, and Mr. Zuckerberg is looking for a friendly country to host this enterprise and certainly hopes to do it legally here.

All this news points to the Facebook Libra being more of a threat to sovereign countries by cutting their currency and their banking systems out of the money moving system and because people tend to store their cryptocurrency on exchanges this may greatly reduce deposits in banks, upon which they depend to make loans and the majority of their profits through fractional banking and the movement of money.

It’s important I think to pause here and realize that the market cap of Bitcoin is very small on the global financial scale. While Bitcoin has freed many thousands of people from the global banking system at some levels, Facebook Libra is an entirely different animal. Bitcoin can’t threaten global banking, it it still to small and used by a small minority of the worlds population. But estimates of Facebooks reach are at 2 billion people worldwide out of a total world population of 5.2 to 6 billion people depending on where you get your numbers. So when you talk about controlling money transfers and potentially the bank deposits of 1/3 to 1/2 of the worlds population and cutting the global bankers out of 33-60 percent of their customers transactions. You get their attention.

I think Libra threatens the global banking system “status quo”, for the reasons above. Libra is a disruptive technology, with global reach and an instant customer base. But even the huge Facebook bank account is small in comparison to the bank accounts of the owners of the global banks like the Rothschilds. We are witnessing a battle of titans, over control of money movement and potential money deposits world wide. Study and understand banking and you understand why this conflict is so important. Facebook and Mr Zuckerberg are giants to common people, but now he is playing on the financial world stage with Demi-gods of the global banking realm.
The term Titans from Greek mythology seems appropriate.

Lastly, I think not only are we watching a historic event play out, but regardless of the success or failure of Mr Zuckerberg’s efforts.... There are others watching his actions and they understand that he has laid bare the soft underbelly of the global bankers. If he fails, others will try after him. The prize is to great to leave it unclaimed.

✍️ written by Shortsegments.