How Libra Was Killed.
I never shared this publicly before, but since @pmarca opened the floodgates on @joerogan’s pod, it feels appropriate to shed more light on this.
As a reminder, Libra (then Diem) was an advanced, high-performance, payments-centric blockchain paired with a stablecoin that we built with my team at @Meta. It would’ve solved global payments at scale. Prior to announcing the project, we spent months briefing key regulators in DC and abroad. We then announced the project in June 2019 alongside 28 companies. Two weeks later, I was called to testify in front of both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, which was the starting point of two years of nonstop work and changes to appease lawmakers and regulators.
By spring of 2021 (yes they slow played us at every step), we had addressed every last possible regulatory concern across financial crime, money laundering, consumer protection, reserve management, buffers, and so much more, and we were ready to launch.
We had worked on a slow rollout of a limited pilot that some members of the Fed’s Board of Governors were supportive of. At last, Chair Jay Powell was ready to let us move forward in a limited way. The story, as I heard it, is that Jay Powell was told by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at one of their biweekly meetings that allowing this project to move forward was “political suicide,” and she would not have his back if he let it happen. I wasn’t in the room when this conversation happened, so take these words with a grain of salt, but effectively this was the moment Libra was killed.
Shortly thereafter, the Fed organized calls with all the participating banks, and the Fed’s general counsel read a prepared statement to each of them, saying: “We can’t stop you from moving forward and launching, but we are not comfortable with you doing so.” And just like that, it was over.
One essential point is worth making here. There was no legal or regulatory angle left for the government or regulators to kill the project. It was 100% a political kill—one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions. That was the hardest part of this story for me personally. Not that we had failed, but that America, this country I immigrated to and became a proud citizen of because of its rule of law and value system, behaved in such a way for political reasons. It was a very tough pill to swallow.
The bright side of the story, though, was the many learnings from this wild ride. By the end of the project, we had made so many concessions to get a thumbs-up that the whole design of the network became a Frankenstein of our initial ambitions.
We also learned the biggest lesson of all, which is that if you’re trying to build an open money grid for the world—eventually moving trillions of dollars a day, designed to be here 100 years from now—you have to build it on the most neutral, decentralized, unassailable network and asset, which, hands down, is Bitcoin.
And now this is what many of us who went through this scarring journey are building together at @Lightspark. And this time, we won’t stop until we get it done!
@CJKonstantinos@Dennis_Porter_ Let's assume it can be of any price (high), without any particular economic justification. Then any stocks or comodity can be of any price as well, because there is clearly no need for any economic justification for the price to go anywhere.
We've played with the idea of lightning payouts years back but we never really committed to it. Until now. It is great to see such a "for everyone" feature, thanks guys.
@TonyPodhorsky@alexpilar Vyvoj na US univerzitach v poslednich letech je tezko charakterizovatelny jako "chraneni svobody slova". Mnohem prilehavejsi je "chraneni vybraneho slova". Coz ma k sobe velmi daleko. V konkretnich pripadech to muze vypadat stejne, ale fundamentalne je to velmi zasadni rozdil!
🎉OUR BIGGEST FIRMWARE UPDATE OF THE YEAR IS HERE!🎉
We are thrilled to announce that Braiin OS+ can now be installed remotely without an SD card.
We are also releasing support for two new Antminer models!
Get all the details on our blog: https://t.co/2bAsXzixkO
We are back home in Prague following our fantastic trip to Sinagpore 🛬
We had some great meetings with the Canaan team while we were there 👀
Thanks again for having us, Canaan!
Our co-founder and co-author of Stratum V2, Pavel Moravec, spoke about SV2’s game changing potential at Canaan’s 10 year anniversary event in Singapore today.
Thank you for having us, Canaan!
🛬We have landed in Singapore for the Canaan 10th Anniversary event held tomorrow 12th September.
Make sure you don't miss our talk about Stratum V2.
We are also booking meetings with investors to share details of a top-secret project we are working on, our DMs are open 🤫
@mlsounekzase@Posledniskaut Je to intelektualne dost lacina az trapna redukce vztahu ruznych narodu na dva konkretni autorem vybrane aspekty minulosti.
Napr. u Nemecka je vztah dnes urcen hlavne vsim, co konzistentne nasledovalo po desitky let PO okupaci. Tabulkovy popis okupaci s tim ma spolecne pramalo.
Wondering what we get up to in our spare time?
We like to get involved in the Bitcoin community in our hometown of Prague.
This afternoon we are celebrating the launch of @saifedean's The Bitcoin Standard book which Braiins Publishing has translated into Czech.
Na zdraví🍻
Finally out! Further improvements are in the pipeline, but it is already a competent piece of software. Free and for any miner, no strings attached :) Feedback welcomed, positive or negative, all helps. Enjoy! :)
New product release for #bitcoin miners
We are proud to announce the public beta for Braiins Farm Proxy - a new free standalone tool designed to reduce network data consumption and streamline your mining operation.
For more info visit https://t.co/glKS3BeL3I
I remember crossing 10 Ph/s with the pool, now it is 10 Eh/s. 1000x is an awesome increase in computational power! #Bitcoin gets crazily stronger. Thanks to all miners securing the network!
This turned out to be a bit more technically challenging than originally anticipated. A custom patch of bitcoin core was needed.. but hey, what a nice learning experience :)
1/ Congratulations to @LeahWald & our friends @valkyriefunds for their bitcoin futures ETF approval.
In recognition of this milestone, we helped Valkyrie mine a very unique transaction into Block #706,966.
A quick 🧵 on putting ASCII pictures into the blockchain👇
[US gov., #bitcoin and financial innovation] One thing would be to compete hard and possibly even lose in a global competition.. It could happen. But throwing a towel to the ring for silly "reasons" is a different story. #facepalm Good luck to all US innovators!