That German-Singapore Lawyer
Facebook and Libra, that’s like the House of Medici on speed. The Medici family were merchants first. During the Italian Renaissance they became bankers, then princes. Then they produced four popes of the Catholic Church. It took them a few centuries to do all that. But in announcing Libra, Facebook is claiming cyber princedom (cyber papacy even?) barely fifteen years after its founding. No wonder the governments of today are stunned.
Facebook, unarguably one of the biggest overlords of cyberspace, has proposed a cryptocurrency: Libra.
That’s interesting. Why Facebook? What’s happening?
This is my speech at the first Computational Law & Blockchain Festival – Singapore Node on 17 March 2018. In it, I tried to explain what initial coin offerings are, why governments all over the world eye them curiously, and how governments regulate them – if they regulate them. I also questioned why brick and mortar governments regulate something so digital.
Over lunch the in-house counsel of a tech company asked me whether I ever decline work. We were making small talk, but funny she should ask. Because I have indeed chosen not to work on one or the other initial coin offering or token sale lately.
I do what I do for a living, so I’m not prone to decline work by default. But these projects didn’t smell right.
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