Copy link
Increase text size
Decrease text size
Link copied

Facebook accused of knocking off Libra cryptocurrency's concept from an MIT report

Image: https://www.alpari.org

Mon, 29 Jul 2019, 04:06 am UTC

In the latest stream in attacks, the whitepaper of Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra was reportedly a knock off of another digital asset.

According to CoinDesk, Alexander Lipton, a Connection Science Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and adjunct professor at New York University, claimed that Libra copied the concepts of a coin he proposed in his academic work.

Without being obnoxious, I can tell you that the actual structure of Libra is pretty much lifted verbatim from the paper which Sandy Pentland and Thomas Hardjono and I published last year,” Lipton, referring to the paper entitled “Digital Trade Coin: Towards a More Stable Digital Currency,” told the news outlet.

The whitepaper for Tardecoin was released in 2018 as a part of the Open Science publication from the Royal Society, authored by all three fellows of MIT. It reportedly tackled a transmission coin, which like Libra, is backed by a basket of tangible assets. The only difference between the two is that Tradecoin will theoretically be supported by oil, gold, base metals, and agricultural commodities, while Libra with government-issued bonds and securities.

Tradecoin was also poised to be managed by a consortium of companies, which is similar to the Libra Association that consists of big names including Mastercard, Paypal, Visa, and Uber. However, Lipton said that Facebook’s selection of partners was different from what the authors had in mind, noting that their targets were more of “raw material producers, supra-natural organizations, and, possibly, a couple of large-scale payment providers, but certainly not the likes of Uber.”

But ultimately, both coins aim to help with conducting payments, catering to the unbanked population, and bringing them into the financial system.

Meanwhile, Lipton claimed that they or their paper was never acknowledged in Libra’s white paper at all. He offered his criticism against Facebook’s upcoming digital asset, saying Libra can be issued in a non-immunized fashion against the financial paper. He went to add that since purchasing Libra will need to buy government securities and other high-grade paper for additional backing for the coin, since it is difficult to earn interest on cash.

He further cautioned that it can cause massive inflation in developing countries since it functions as money.

It will cause enormous inflation because the amount of money will be kind of doubled, roughly speaking, in fact much more than doubled … I am not a big fan of quantity theory of money, but I am absolutely certain that as the amount of money explodes, prices will go up.”

The news follows after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reaffirmed his commitment to the social media’s cryptocurrency project, saying they will spend “however long it takes” to address the concerns of all regulators and experts.

<Copyright © TokenPost. All Rights Reserved. >

  • PUBLISH (NEWS) $0.000551 (-15.75%)
  • Bitcoin (BTC) $26,224.20 (-1.32%)
  • Ethereum (ETH) $1,584.71 (-0.39%)
  • Tether USDt (USDT) $0.999704 (-0.06%)
  • BNB (BNB) $209.24 (-0.67%)
  • XRP (XRP) $0.498572 (-2.18%)
  • PUBLISH (NEWS) $0.000551 (-15.75%)
Jul 15, 2021 (Thursday)
13:30
BTC Surges by 1.16% Within 5 Mins, Marking 31,824.01 USDT
12:06
BTC Surges by 1.12% Within 5 Mins, Marking 32,104.8 USDT
10:25
BTC Drops by 1.03% Within 5 Mins, Marking 32,171.88 USDT
02:13
TriumphX Scouts 'MINAMCOMPANY' CEO Woo-Seong Lee As Creative Director
02:00
ETH Tops List Of Crypto Net Inflow With $298.96 Mln In Past 10 Hours
Jul 14, 2021 (Wednesday)
13:14
BTC Surges by 1.03% Within 5 Mins, Marking 32,738.08 USDT
09:03
BTC Surges by 1.01% Within 5 Mins, Marking 31,899 USDT
02:30
Crypto Market Sentiment On Jul 14: Market In "Extreme Fear"
02:00
ETH Tops List Of Crypto Net Outflow With $224.97 Mln In Past 10 Hours
Jul 13, 2021 (Tuesday)
02:30
Crypto Market Sentiment On Jul 13: Market In "Extreme Fear"
02:00
ETH Tops List Of Crypto Net Outflow With $178.61 Mln In Past 10 Hours
Jul 12, 2021 (Monday)
02:30
Crypto Market Sentiment On Jul 12: Market In "Extreme Fear"
02:00
BTC Tops List Of Crypto Net Inflow With $164.82 Mln In Past 10 Hours
Jul 11, 2021 (Sunday)
21:31
BTC Surges by 1.02% Within 5 Mins, Marking 34,475.6 USDT
10:00
ETH Tops List Of Crypto Net Inflow With $122.76 Mln In Past 18 Hours
06:17
SOBA Listed On LATOKEN
02:30
Crypto Market Sentiment On Jul 11: Market In "Extreme Fear"
02:00
BTC Tops List Of Crypto Net Outflow With $87.56 Mln In Past 10 Hours
Jul 9, 2021 (Friday)
21:40
BTC Surges by 1.08% Within 5 Mins, Marking 33,911.8 USDT
02:30
Crypto Market Sentiment On Jul 09: Market In "Extreme Fear"
Subscribe to the TokenPost newsletter!
Don't show me this again today.
Back to top
Copyright ⓒ TokenPost. All Rights Reserved.