2019年经济学人 Facebook推出“天秤币”(3)（在线收听）

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在技术和财务上很可能独自完成这样一项雄心勃勃的事业。但在政治方面却不可能独自完成。其文化不像年轻时那么非道德化，那时的Facebook渴望“快速行动，打破陈规”——但程度只是一点点。谨慎的消费者可能会选择不把钱托付给一个直到最近才左右泄露了他们个人数据的社交网络。除非用户同意，否则商家可能不愿接受这种货币，尽管这种货币操作起来很便利。

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.

进入天秤币联盟。该协会总部位于日内瓦，将在第一批天秤币用完之前接管Facebook，并管理硬通货储备。Facebook从预计的100名创始成员中招募了28名其他潜在创始成员，每个人都拥有平等的投票权，并在一个发行硬币的分散化系统中运营一个节点。这些公司包括金融公司(Visa、Stripe)、在线服务公司(Spotify、Uber)、加密货币钱包(Anchorage、Coinbase)、风险投资家(安德森?霍洛维茨基金、Union Square Ventures)和慈善机构(Kiva、美慈)，不过目前还没有银行。换句话说，这不是对现有金融体系的自由主义替代，而是一种补充。

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过去曾承诺将社交数据和财务数据分开，为了增加可信度，该公司创建了一个子公司Calibra，在其应用程序中运行天秤币服务。它不太可能面临从苹果或谷歌那里收购的障碍。很难想象他们会像对待其他加密货币产品一样，将Messenger和whatsapp(后来Facebook还邀请其他提供商加入这个开源项目)从他们的应用程序商店中驱逐出去，其中很多都是骗局。

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.

为了让天秤币持续发展，该联盟将付钱给商家，让他们为使用新货币的顾客提供折扣，资金来源是每位会员支付1000万美元的一次性入会费。最终，Facebook希望任何人，不仅仅是财团，都能够生成货币，将其转移，并在其“区块链”(用于跟踪谁拥有什么东西的数据库的密码)上提供服务。在那种意义下，天秤币会变成去掉复杂手续和所谓自由主义的比特币。