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Libre Not Libra – Thinking Critically About Facebook’s Blockchain Project

Years of jokes about “FaceCoin” and “ZuckBucks” have finally come to life – sort of.

Updated Sep 13, 2021, 12:14 p.m. Published Feb 2, 2020, 4:20 p.m.

Andreas Antonopoulos image via Wikimedia Commons

In “Libre Not Libra: Facebook’s Blockchain Project,” Andreas Antonopoulos answers the burning question: Has he tried haggis? Just kidding, he shares his thoughts on the Libra white paper, part of a permissioned blockchain project launched by Facebook.

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Note: This talk took place on June 19, 2019, at the Scottish Blockchain Meetup in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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This episode of Let's Talk Bitcoin! is sponsored by Brave and eToro.

Years of jokes about “FaceCoin” and “ZuckBucks” have finally come to life – sort of. In a previous episode, Antonopoulos talked about how some venture capitalists are monkeying around by downplaying the killer applications of open blockchains in favor of … bananas. Now he makes us wonder whether Libra will even survive to become a production network. Is Silicon Valley coming for banking? Will Libra’s challenges have any impact on open public blockchains?

Episode Credits:

Today’s show featured Andreas M. Antonopoulos, with a little narration by Stephanie Murphy and Adam B. Levine, as well as the live crowd and that guy with the great laugh about three quarters through.

Photo by Anna Tukhfatullina Food Photographer/Stylist on Unsplash.

This episode featured music by Jared Rubens, Orfan and general fuzz. Production support was provided by Erica and Jessica, with sound editing by Dimitris of Sampi Media.

Want to hear more of Andreas’s Live talks? Check out new episodes every week on Unscrypted, or just head over to aantonop.com.

Have any questions or comments? Email me at adam@ltbshow.com.

Subscribe to the new CoinDesk Podcast Network for fresh, insightful episodes nearly every day of the week.

Libra Podcasts Andreas M. Antonopoulos Let’s Talk Bitcoin!

Adam B. Levine

Adam B. Levine joined CoinDesk in 2019 as the editor of its new audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let's Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast's homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the Spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of "Steemit"; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.

With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com and media with Token.fm. Adam owns some BTC, ETH and small positions in a number of other tokens.