This is a highlighted summary of a talk given by Andreas M. Antonopoulos in July 2019, following the release of a whitepaper by Facebook about their intent to issue Libra. Since then there has been regulatory pressure, political pushback, fake token scams, and perhaps just bad planning. Facebook has backed away from Libra giving control over to a nonprofit Libra Association.

Turns out that Andreas was right on track. But he also warns that corporate digital currency is coming and that ain’t a good thing.

The entire  40 minute plus talk can be found here;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S6506vkth4

Ten years ago when Bitcoin first came about the banks should have made a digital currency deal just like the music industry should have made a deal with Napster, that could have prevented the music industry from being killed by Apple a short time later.

In the currency world there are two major forces:

• fiat currencies issued by government or nation states, (Dollars, Yen, etc.)
• private money or people's money, (Bitcoin and other cybercurrencies)

The private money segment is growing but still minuscule compared to government fiat currencies.
What Facebook is proposing is actually a third force, corporate digital currency.
The characteristics of a true cybercurrency are:

• Open - Accessible by all who want to participate
• Borderless
• Neutral - Allow transmission to and from anyone for any purpose.
• Immutable - Cannot be changed or stopped
• Auditable and transparent
• Private

Facebook’s Libra will be more of a pseudo-currency SDR, (special Drawing Rights), based on a basket of local currencies, (that could hyper inflate at any time), and funded directly by consumer retail activity.
Libra will fail most of the cybercurrency characteristics.  We could even call it surveillance money, where all your preferences and expenditures are recorded. Many countries will not allow it. In fact, we can expect that China will have its own entry through Wechat. What that could lead to is an East/West divide.

That is not to say Libra will not be both successful and profitable. They also won't be the only one. The FANGs as well as companies like Uber and Airbnb soon be radically transforming their business models to accommodate Libra-like entries at a capitalization level that will dwarf the GDPs of many governments.

Libra and the corporate currencies that follow will forever change financial life as we know it. Say goodbye to central control. First to be affected will be the regional banks. Not the big banks who long ago gave up on individuals, but the smaller banks who still provide banking services to the little guy. Slick interfaces and cute app packages will drive down the cost of banking and eventually replace it.

Libra represents the next step in a march to a cashless society. This is not something to celebrate. What we will give up is freedom, privacy, and democracy.  The cashless society is also not robust and is very fragile lacking a relief valve or exit strategy. Libra and the corporate cybercurrencies that will follow represent the wrong way to do cybercurrency, just as AOL introduced the wrong way to use the internet. Welcome to technological fascism