Facebook libra White Paper

https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/

An Introduction to Libra

Libra's mission is to build a simple global monetary and financial infrastructure, services billions of people.
This document provides an overview of our program, a new decentralized block chain, encryption low currency volatility, and an intelligent platform contract, aimed at creating a new opportunity for responsible financial services innovation.

 

Problem Statement

The advent of the Internet and mobile broadband to make billions of people worldwide access to knowledge and information, high-fidelity communications, as well as a wide range of the world's low-cost, more convenient service. These services are now almost anywhere in the world you can get with a $ 40 smartphone. The connection by making more people into the financial ecosystem to promote economic empowerment. Together, technology companies and financial institutions to find help strengthen global economic power solutions. Despite this progress, there is still a large part of the world's population are lagging behind - the world are still 17 million adults did not enter the financial system, can not enter the traditional banks, although there are one billion people have mobile phones, nearly 500 million people can Internet

For many people, some parts of the financial system looked like before the advent of the Internet telecommunications network. 20 years ago, sent a text message in Europe, the average price is 16 cents a. Now everyone has a smart phone are available through a basic data plan free communication around the world. At that time, telecom prices are high, but the price is unified, and today, for those most in need of financial services, the access to financial services is limited or restricted - these people were cost, reliable the impact of remittances and seamless capabilities.

Around the world, the less money people pay more for financial services. Hard-earned income is eroded fees, remittance and wire transfer fees from the ATM and overdraft fees. Payday loans charge annual interest rates of 400% or more, and when just borrowed $ 100, financial costs can be as high as $ 30. When people ask why they are still on the edge of the existing financial system, those "unbanked" that is because there is not enough funding, unpredictable high fees, bank distance too far and the lack of necessary documents explain.

Block chain and encryption currency has many unique properties that could potentially solve some accessibility and credibility problems. These include distributed control, which ensures that no single entity controls the network; open access, allowing anyone who has an Internet connection to participate in; learn to protect the integrity of the funds password.

 

However, the conventional block chain system has not been mainstream. Mass-market chains and existing block has been encrypted using the currency of their volatility and the lack of scalability of the reasons hindering, so far, these factors make them a poor store of value and medium of exchange. Some project also aims to break the existing system, bypassing the regulatory, rather than innovation in compliance and regulatory aspects, in order to improve the effectiveness of anti-money laundering. We believe that, with the financial sector, including regulators and experts in various sectors of cooperation and innovation, to ensure a sustainable, secure and credible framework to support the only way this new system. This method can make the global financial system towards lower costs, easier access, closer contact direction taken a big step.

 

The Opportunity

In this journey we embark together on the occasion, we believe it is important to share our faith, so we intend to launch this initiative around the communities and ecosystems consistent:

• We believe that there should be more people access to cheap capital and financial services.
• We believe that people have an inherent right to control its legitimate fruits of labor.
• We believe that global, open, real-time, low-cost capital flows will create huge economic opportunities and more trade around the world.
• We believe that more and more people will trust decentralized form of governance to go.
• We believe that global monetary and financial infrastructure should be designed as a public good and Management
• We believe we have a responsibility to help promote financial inclusion, support and moral actors, and continue to maintain the integrity of ecosystems

 

Introducing Libra - Libra Introduction

The world really need a reliable digital currency and infrastructure, jointly promises "Money Internet".

Protect your financial assets on your mobile device should be simple and intuitive. No matter where you live, what is being done, how much money, transfer funds across the globe should share photos and send text messages or as simple, cost-effective, or even more secure than this. New entrants and new product innovation ecosystem will help reduce entry barriers and the cost of capital for everyone, and to promote more people frictionless payment.

Now is the time to create a new digital currency on the basis of the block chain technology. Libra's mission is to build a simple global monetary and financial infrastructure, services billions of people. Libra consists of three parts, they will work together to create a more inclusive financial system:

• It is built on a secure, scalable and reliable block chain;
• It is designed to give its support by the intrinsic value of reserve assets;
• It is managed by an independent Libra association, whose mission is the evolution of the ecosystem.

Libra currency is based on "Libra block chain". Because its goal is for users worldwide, is achieved Libra block chain software is open source, anyone can build on its basis, billions of people can rely on it to meet their financial needs. Imagine an open, financial services ecosystem, developers and organizations to build interoperable ecosystem to help people and businesses hold and transfer Libra for everyday use. With the popularity of smart phones and wireless data, more and more people will be able to access these new services online through Libra. To make Libra ecosystems to achieve this vision over time, block chain starting from scratch, giving priority to scalability, efficiency, security, storage and throughput and future adaptability. Libra can continue to read an overview of the following block chain, or read technical papers .

Currency unit called the "Libra". Libra needs to be accepted in many places, and it is easy for those who want to take advantage of it enters Libra. In other words, people need to have confidence that they can take advantage of Libra, its value will remain relatively stable in time. Unlike most encryption currency different, Libra is fully supported by physical assets reserves. A basket of bank deposits and short-term government bonds will be stored in Libra's reserves to cope with each being created Libra, build confidence in its intrinsic value. Libra's reserves will be the purpose of management is to maintain the value of the Libra over time. Continue reading outlined below Libra and Libra, or in here to read more.

 

Libra Association is an independent, non-profit membership organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The purpose of the association is to coordinate and provide a network management framework, leadership and community reserves and grants to support inclusive finance. This white paper reflects its mission, vision and authority. Membership association is formed by the operation of the verifier block chain Libra nodes of the network.

Libra will include members of the Association of Enterprises with different geographical distribution, non-profit organizations and multilateral organizations, and academic institutions. We will work together to finalize the constitution of the association and articles of association after the completion of a "founding member", originally organized by industry groups as follows:

• 支付：Mastercard, Mercado Pago, PayPal, PayU (Naspers’ fintech arm), Stripe, Visa
• Technology and Market: Booking Holdings, eBay, Facebook / Calibra, Farfetch, Lyft, Spotify AB, Uber Technologies, Inc.
• Telecommunications: Iliad, Vodafone Group
• Block chain: Anchorage, Bison Trails, Coinbase, Inc., XAPO Holdings Limited's
• 风险投资： Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Initiatives, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital,Union Square Ventures
• Non-profit organizations and multilateral organizations, and academic institutions: Creative Destruction Lab, Kiva, Mercy Corps, Women's World Banking

We hope that the first half of 2020, the number of members of the Association of Libra reached about 100 people.
Facebook team together, played a key role in the process of creating Libra Libra associations and block chain with other founding members. Although the final decision in the association, but is expected to Facebook will maintain its leading position in 2019. Facebook created a subsidiary Calibra regulated to ensure separation between the social and financial data, and based on its behalf Libra network and operations services.

Once Libra network boot, Facebook and its subsidiaries will have the same as any other founding members of the commitment, privileges and financial obligations. As many members of a role of Facebook in terms of governance of the Association will work with its counterparts quite.

Block chain is described to be involved as an authentication node requires a license or no license. In the "License block chain", the user permission to run the authentication node. In the "no license block chain", any person to meet the technical needs of verification node can run, do not need permission. In this sense, Libra will start with a block chain requires a license.

To ensure that Libra is truly open, and always run in the best interests of its users, our goal is to be the unlicensed network Libra block chain. The challenge we face is that, so far, we do not believe there is a proven solution that can be provided through a network without a permit needed to support global multi-billion people and deal size, stability and security. One indication of the association will be working with communities, research and implementation of this change, which will be publicly released in Libra block chain and ecosystems begin within five years.

Libra is a state of mind both in need and do not need to allow permitted, Libra block chain will be open to all: any consumer, business or developer can use Libra network, build products on its basis, and add value through its services. Open Access ensures low barriers to entry and innovation, and encourage healthy competition in favor of consumers. This is the foundation for the world to build a more inclusive financial target of choice.

 

The Libra Blockchain --Libra block chain

Libra target block chain is as a solid foundation for financial services, as a new global currency to meet billions of people's daily financial needs. By assessment of existing options, we decided to build a new block chain based on the following three requirements:

• It can be extended to billions account, which requires a high chair throughput, low latency and high efficiency, high-capacity storage systems.
• Highly secure, to ensure that funds and financial data security.
• Flexible, so it can promote ecosystem management Libra, and the future of innovation in financial services

Libra chain block is designed from scratch to fully address these needs, and establish a good understanding of the methods and techniques based on existing research projects and learning, combined with innovation. The next section will focus on three decisions on Libra block chain:
1. Design and use the Move programming language.
2. Use the Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus method.
3. The use of data structures and the block chain iterative widely used.

"Move" is a new programming language, used to implement custom business logic and "smart contract" on Libra block chain. Because Libra's goal is to one day serve billions of people, so the Move in the design put safety first. Move to draw from so far occurred in the smart security incidents in the contract insights, and create a language, in line with the author's intention to write code easier essence, thereby reducing the error or unexpected safety events risk. Specifically, Move aims to prevent assets being cloned. It supports digital assets and physical assets constrained to have the same attribute "resource type": that resource is only one owner, can only be used once, and limit the creation of new resources. Move automatic language also helps to prove that the transaction meets certain attributes, such as payment transactions only change the payer and the recipient's account balance. By prioritizing these functions, Move will help Libra blocks chain remain secure. By simplifying the development of critical transaction code, Move can safely implement governance policies Libra ecosystems, such as for Libra money management and verification node network. This will accelerate the evolution of Libra block chain agreement, as well as any financial innovation of the protocol. We expect that, over time, the ability to create contract developers will be developed to support the development and validation Move.

 

In order to facilitate the transaction and the order agreed between all verification will be performed nodes, Libra chain block by using the method employed LibraBFT consensus BFT protocol. This approach to build trust in the network, because even some of the verification nodes (up to one-third of the network) is threatened or failure, BFT consensus agreement can work. Such consensus protocol also supports high transaction throughput, low latency and "workload prove" a more efficient method than the consensus of other blocks in the chain.

For securely storing transaction data on the block chain protected Libra Merkle tree, Merkle tree is a data structure used by another block chain, is capable of detecting any changes to existing data. Previous block chain will be considered as a set of block trading block, while Libra block chain is different, it is a single data structure transaction history and status changes over time record. This implementation simplifies the job of the application accessing the block chain, allowing them to read any data from any point in time, integrity and authentication using a uniform framework data.

Libra block chain is anonymous, allowing the user to hold one or more unrelated to the true identity of their address. Many users, developers and regulators familiar with this approach. Libra Libra association will oversee the development of protocols and network block chain, and will continue to evaluate new technologies to enhance privacy block chain, taking into account the availability, scalability and regulatory implications.

For more details, please read the technical papers (Libra on the block chain Technical Paper ). About Move programming language and LibraBFT consensus protocol details can be obtained. We have disclosed Libra testnet early preview version, and comes with documentation. testnet still under development, api may change. Our commitment is open to cooperate with the community, and I hope you can read, build and provide feedback.

 

 

The Libra Currency and Reserve - Libra and currency reserves

We believe that the world needs a global, digitized national currency, will feature the world's best money - stability, low inflation, global widely accepted and irreplaceable - together. Libra money to help meet the global demand, mode of operation is intended to expand the currency to more people in the world.

Libra is designed to be a stable currency digital encryption, which will consist entirely of real reserve assets, ie the reserve support Libra, Libra sale by competitive exchange network support. This means that any Libra people have a high degree of certainty, they can exchange their digital currency to convert into the local legal tender, exchange with another currency as a currency like when traveling. This approach is similar to other currencies in the past to introduce ways: To help people come to trust a new currency, and get widespread adoption in its early days, the government of a country to ensure that bills can be converted into physical assets, such as gold. However, Libra will no longer backed by gold, but by a series of low volatility asset as a backup, such as bank deposits from stable and good reputation of the central bank and short-term government securities denominated in the currency.

It is important to emphasize that this does not always mean that a Libra can be converted into an equal number of local currency (ie, Libra is not fixed on the single currency). Conversely, as the change in value of the underlying assets, a Libra value in local currency of any kind are likely to fluctuate. However, the choice of these reserve assets in order to minimize volatility, so Libra can believe that the ability of holders of the currency long-term preservation. Libra reserve assets of the region will be hosting a network of geographically distributed holdings, the network has an investment grade credit rating, to provide security and dispersion of assets.

Libra assets behind is the main difference between it and the many existing encryption currency , which lack this intrinsic value, so the price will be based on the expected volatility. Libra is indeed an encryption currency, however, and as such, it inherits the properties of some of these attractive new digital currency: the ability to quickly transfer, security, encryption technology, and the freedom to easily cross-border transfers. Like today people can use phones to send the same message to friends anywhere in the world, the same thing can also be used to complete Libra - immediate, safe, and low cost.

Interest on reserve assets will be used to pay the cost of the system to ensure lower transaction costs, to pay dividends to investors to provide funding for the startup ecosystem (Read more in " Libra Association "), and to support further growth and adoption. Deposit interest allocation rules will be formulated in advance by the Association for Supervision and Libra. Libra users will not receive a return from reserve assets.
For more information on policies and Libra reserve currency, please read here .

 

 

The Libra Association - Libra Association

To make Libra's mission to become a reality - that is, to achieve a simple global monetary and financial infrastructure to serve the billions of people - then Libra and Libra reserves of the block chain needs a management entity, a diverse and independent members composition. The management entity called the Libra Association, an independent, non-profit membership organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Switzerland has the world's neutrality and open technology to block chain of history, the association strives to be a neutral international organization, and therefore choose to register there. The association aims to facilitate the functioning of Libra block chain; consistency of coordination between the various stakeholders, namely verification node network to promote, develop and expand the network, and manage the reserves.

The Association of Association Management Council Libra, which consists of a representative of each of the verification node. Together, they decided to manage the network and reserves. Initially, the organization of the founding members : the enterprise from around the world, non-profit organizations and multilateral organizations, and academic institutions. All decisions are submitted to the Council, significant policy or technical decisions require a two-thirds affirmative vote, an absolute majority of the same ideas and BFT consensus agreement calls for the network.

The authentication node to be aligned according to the technical development of the road map and the target network through the association. In this sense, it is similar to other non-profit entities, usually in the form of an open source project management foundation. Since Libra is dependent on a growing contributor to the open source community distributed, so associations are essential tools to establish guidelines, which guide the development and use of protocols or specifications.

Libra Libra association also reserve management entity, so Libra economic stability and growth can be achieved. The association is the only way to create (Mint) and destruction (burning) Libra organization. Only when the authorized dealer to purchase these coins from fiat Association assets to fully support the new coins, coins will be cast. Only when the authorized dealer will sell the currency Libra associations to exchange relevant reserve assets, money will be burned. As the authorized dealer always equal to the value of the basket price will be sold to Libra currency reserves, so Libra reserves act as a "buyer of last resort." These activities are the Association reserves management policy management and constraints, and reserve management policy can only be changed by a majority of members of the Association.

In the early years of the network, but it is also required on behalf of the Association to perform some additional tasks: recruitment as a founding member of the verification node; to raise funds to start ecosystems; design and implementation of incentive programs to promote the use of Libra, including the founding members of this distribution class incentives; and the establishment of the Association of the social impact of grant projects.

 

Another goal of the association is to develop and promote an open identity standards. We believe that the decentralized and portable digital identity is a prerequisite for achieving financial inclusion and competition.

Libra is an important goal of the Association is to gradually increase over time to the center. This has ensured to the center on the establishment and use of networks of low barriers to entry, and improve the long-term resilience of ecosystems Libra. As mentioned above, Libra Association will develop a lead-free road network license management and Libra consensus. The goal of the association will be to begin this transition within five years, this will gradually reduce its dependence on the founding Member States. In the same spirit, the association want to minimize reliance on its own as a Libra reserve managers.

For more information about Libra Association, please read here .

 

 

What's Next for Libra? The next step

Today, we released a document outlining our goal of Libra, and libra.org as Libra associations and all things official website. It will continue to be updated in the coming months. We are also open source code block chain Libra, Libra and launched an initial test network for developers to build and test.

In front of goal in the first half of 2020 release, there are many things to do:

• Libra block chain: In the coming months, the association will work with communities to gather feedback on the prototype of Libra block chain, and brought it into production-ready status. In particular, this work will focus on ensuring security, performance and scalability protocol and implementation.

1. Libra Association will establish a sound api files and libraries that enable users to interact with Libra block chain.
2. Libra association will use the open-source method ( Open-Source Methodology ) to create a framework for collaborative development technologies Libra block chain behind. We will establish procedures to review and discuss changes to the support block chain protocols and software.
3. The association will conduct extensive testing block chain, from protocol to test cooperation and exchange with the wallet services and other entities to build a comprehensive network testing to ensure that the system is working properly before starting.
4. The association will work to promote the development of Move languages, and after the language development and stability, that is, after Libra ecosystems start to determine contract third parties to create a smart path.

The association will study together with the community to achieve technical challenges on the road without permission ecosystem, so that we can achieve the target within five years after the start of the beginning of the transition.

 

About reserve:

• The association will work to establish a global agency management group dispersed and regulated on a geographically reserves.
• Association will establish a reserve to interact with authorized dealers operating procedures to ensure transparency and auditability.
• The association will develop policies and procedures to determine how to change the composition of the basket of reserve currencies.

 

About Libra Association:
We will strive to expand the Association Council Libra geographical distribution and about 100 different members, both as initial verification node Libra block chain.
The association will be based on the current recommendations of the governance structure, develop and adopt a comprehensive set of articles of association and articles of association.
Our association will recruit a managing director, and with her / him to continue to recruit executive team association.
We will determine the impact of social partners in accordance with our joint mission, and work with them to build a society Advisory Committee on the Effects and social impact of a project.

 

How to Get Involved How to join
the global use of the association envisages the establishment of a vibrant ecosystem building applications and services by the developers to stimulate the Libra. The association will make success was defined as any individual or corporate global equitable, affordable and immediate access to capital. For example, its success will mean that a person working in a foreign country has a fast and simple way to send money home, a college student can pay their rent as they can buy coffee as easy.

Our journey has just begun, we are requesting help from the community. If you believe what Libra can do for the billions of people in the world, please share your ideas and join them. Your feedback is necessary, such that for any local people, inclusive finance will become a reality.

 

• If you are a researcher or protocol developer, you can use an early preview Libra testnet under the Apache 2.0 open source license, which is included with the document. This is just the beginning of this process, testnet is still an early prototype development, but you can read immediately, build and provide feedback. Since the current focus is stable prototype, so the project may initially slow to accept contributions to the community. However, we are committed to building a community-oriented development process, and open platform to developers as soon as possible - pull request from the beginning.
• If you want to know Libra Association, please here to read more.
• If your organization is interested in becoming a founding member of the Association of Libra or the provision of social grants, please read here .

The association will work with the international community in the coming months, and continue to work with policy makers from around the world to advance this mission.

 

 

Conclusion summary

Libra's objectives are: to generate and establish a stable currency in the security and stability of the block chain on the basis of open source, in order to reserve physical assets backed by an independent association management.
Our hope is to create more opportunities to get better, cheaper, more open financial services - no matter who you are, where to stay, what to do, or how much assets. We recognize that the way to achieve this goal will be long and arduous, is not achieved in isolation, the need to unite and launch a real movement around this goal. We hope you join us, billions of people around the world to help put this dream into a reality.