Technically and financially, Facebook could probably pull off such an ambitious undertaking on its own. But not politically. Its culture is less amoral than it was in its youth, when it aspired to “move fast and break things”—but only a bit. Chary consumers may choose not to entrust their money to a social network which has, until recently, leaked their personal data left and right. Unless users are on board, merchants may be reluctant to embrace the currency, however hassle-free.
Facebook在技術(shù)和財(cái)務(wù)上很可能獨(dú)自完成這樣一項(xiàng)雄心勃勃的事業(yè)。但在政治方面卻不可能獨(dú)自完成。其文化不像年輕時(shí)那么非道德化，那時(shí)的Facebook渴望“快速行動(dòng)，打破陳規(guī)”——但程度只是一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)。謹(jǐn)慎的消費(fèi)者可能會(huì)選擇不把錢托付給一個(gè)直到最近才左右泄露了他們個(gè)人數(shù)據(jù)的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)。除非用戶同意，否則商家可能不愿接受這種貨幣，盡管這種貨幣操作起來(lái)很便利。
Enter the Libra consortium. The association, to be based in Geneva, will take over from Facebook before the first Libra has been spent, and manage the hard-currency reserves. Facebook has enlisted 28 other prospective founding members out of an envisaged 100, each with equal voting rights and operating a node in a decentralised system which issues coins. They include financial firms (Visa, Stripe), online services (Spotify, Uber), cryptocurrency wallets (Anchorage, Coinbase), venture capitalists (Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures) and charities (Kiva, Mercy Corps)—though, for the time being, no banks. Not a libertarian alternative to the existing financial system, in other words, but a complement.
進(jìn)入天秤幣聯(lián)盟。該協(xié)會(huì)總部位于日內(nèi)瓦，將在第一批天秤幣用完之前接管Facebook，并管理硬通貨儲(chǔ)備。Facebook從預(yù)計(jì)的100名創(chuàng)始成員中招募了28名其他潛在創(chuàng)始成員，每個(gè)人都擁有平等的投票權(quán)，并在一個(gè)發(fā)行硬幣的分散化系統(tǒng)中運(yùn)營(yíng)一個(gè)節(jié)點(diǎn)。這些公司包括金融公司(Visa、Stripe)、在線服務(wù)公司(Spotify、Uber)、加密貨幣錢包(Anchorage、Coinbase)、風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資家(安德森•霍洛維茨基金、Union Square Ventures)和慈善機(jī)構(gòu)(Kiva、美慈)，不過(guò)目前還沒(méi)有銀行。換句話說(shuō)，這不是對(duì)現(xiàn)有金融體系的自由主義替代，而是一種補(bǔ)充。
To add credibility to its promise, broken in the past, to keep social and financial data separate, Facebook has created a subsidiary, Calibra, to run Libra services within its apps. It is unlikely to face hurdles to uptake from Apple or Google. It is impossible to imagine them expelling Messenger and WhatsApp—and later other providers Facebook is inviting to the open-source project— from their app stores, as they have done with other cryptocurrency offerings, many of which were scams.
Facebook過(guò)去曾承諾將社交數(shù)據(jù)和財(cái)務(wù)數(shù)據(jù)分開(kāi)，為了增加可信度，該公司創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)子公司Calibra，在其應(yīng)用程序中運(yùn)行天秤幣服務(wù)。它不太可能面臨從蘋(píng)果或谷歌那里收購(gòu)的障礙。很難想象他們會(huì)像對(duì)待其他加密貨幣產(chǎn)品一樣，將Messenger和whatsapp(后來(lái)Facebook還邀請(qǐng)其他提供商加入這個(gè)開(kāi)源項(xiàng)目)從他們的應(yīng)用程序商店中驅(qū)逐出去，其中很多都是騙局。
To get Libra going, the consortium will pay merchants to offer discounts to customers who use the new currency, financed by a $10m one-off fee each member pays for a seat at the table. Eventually, Facebook would like anybody, not just the consortium, to be able to generate the currency, transfer it and offer services on top of its “blockchain” (crypto-speak for the database that keeps track of who owns what). At that point, Libra would turn into Bitcoin, minus the kinks and the libertarianism.
為了讓天秤幣持續(xù)發(fā)展，該聯(lián)盟將付錢給商家，讓他們?yōu)槭褂眯仑泿诺念櫩吞峁┱劭郏Y金來(lái)源是每位會(huì)員支付1000萬(wàn)美元的一次性入會(huì)費(fèi)。最終，F(xiàn)acebook希望任何人，不僅僅是財(cái)團(tuán)，都能夠生成貨幣，將其轉(zhuǎn)移，并在其“區(qū)塊鏈”(用于跟蹤誰(shuí)擁有什么東西的數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)的密碼)上提供服務(wù)。在那種意義下，天秤幣會(huì)變成去掉復(fù)雜手續(xù)和所謂自由主義的比特幣。
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