Facebook’s Libra versus Bitcoin
Facebook has announced that it will introduce the Libra cryptocurrency, which will be pegged to several international currencies and will be backed by several well known financial organizations, including Visa and Mastercard. It appears to be something like a cryptocurrency dollar. Bitcoin is more like cryptocurrency gold. It has no set value, but it does a limit on how many Bitcoins can ever exist, making it more like gold, something whose supply is limited and that has a value depending mainly on how much people are willing to pay for it. Thus, the value of the Libra should be fairly steady, while the value of Bitcoin may vary wildly. A story in the Verge examines some of the downsides of Libra. One of the first questions is whether the Libra will work at all. It seems likely that it will, but its blockchain technology is different from Bitcoin’s. Bitcoin’s chain is basically open to the world, allowing anyone to create a...