硬通貨幣
In a project with so many moving parts, much can go wrong. Although Facebook says it has a working prototype, the technology is untested; sceptics doubt that a 100-node system, let alone a bigger one, could process thousands of transactions per second. Hackers are doubtless champing at the bit.
在一個有這么多活動部件的項目中,可能會出現很多問題。盡管Facebook稱其有一個工作原型,但該技術尚未經過測試;懷疑論者懷疑,一個擁有100個節點的系統,更不用說一個更大的系統,每秒能處理數千個事務。毫無疑問,黑客們正躍躍欲試。
Then there are consortium dynamics. Facebook will have to prove to the other 99 Libra members that it is truly prepared to give up control. At the same time, because important decisions need a two-thirds majority, someone has to knock heads together. The history of information technology is littered with initiatives that collapsed under the weight of internal conflict.
此外還有財團的活力。Facebook必須向其他99個天秤幣合伙人證明,真的準備放棄控制權。與此同時,因為重要的決策需要三分之二的多數同意,所以必須有人集思廣益。信息技術的歷史上,不乏在內部沖突的重壓下崩潰的計劃。
The biggest barrier may be political. Facebook has apparently consulted many regulators. The providers of digital wallets will have to comply with national rules, such as those against money-laundering. Calibra, whose integration into Messenger and WhatsApp will initially make it the dominant wallet, is bound to stoke competition concerns. These may recede as the currency grows bigger and more decentralised, only to be replaced by worries about financial stability.
最大的障礙可能是政治。Facebook顯然咨詢了許多監管機構。數字錢包的提供者必須遵守國家規定,比如反洗錢規定。Calibra與Messenger和WhatsApp的整合,最初將使其成為占據主導地位的錢包,這勢必會引發競爭擔憂。隨著天秤幣的升值和更加分散化,這些擔憂可能會消退,取而代之的是對金融穩定的擔憂。
Libra’s success, then, is far from assured. But it could prove useful even if it flops, for it offers a blueprint for how Facebook itself could one day be governed. The Libra Association’s main task is to oversee the blockchain, ensuring, for instance, that Calibra does not enjoy privileged access to it. An equivalent Facebook Association, some observers have ventured, could be composed of representatives of users, advertisers, data-protection authorities and so on. Their job could be to oversee the “social graph”, another database, which lists all of Facebook’s users and the links between them—and to guarantee that Facebook users can post to another social network, and vice versa.
天秤座的成功還遠未確定。但即使失敗了,它也可能被證明是有用的,因為它為Facebook有朝一日如何自我管理提供了一幅藍圖。天秤幣協會的主要任務是監督區塊鏈,例如確保Calibra不享有訪問天秤幣的特權。一些觀察人士大膽提出,一個類似的Facebook協會可能由用戶、廣告商、數據保護機構等方面的代表組成。他們的工作可能是監督“社交圖”,另一個數據庫,它列出了Facebook的所有用戶和他們之間的鏈接,并確保Facebook用戶可以發布到另一個社交網絡,反之亦然。
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