By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 19th, 2024
Wall Street Journal readers found an interesting add between their finance news. It appears as if not only Libra’s logo is subject of discussion: one of the defining characteristics of Facebook’s project is seemingly inspired in a key element of Hedera Hashgraph.
It seems that crypto companies that most of us never have heard of, are doing great – actually really great. Hedera Hashgraph, one of several aspiring iterations of blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, has paid for a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal mocking Facebook.
For those who don’t know it’s “just” a $45,421. Good thing they haven’t done it in color because it would cost them $10K more. The add says:
“Thank you Facebook Libra. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s been their internet for too long. Make it yours. #hello future”
Be it as it may, one of the defining characteristics of Facebook’s project is seemingly inspired in a key element of Hedera Hashgraph.
Hedera’s founder Leemon Baird explained that about a year ago, just before Hedera went public with their plans, the company had a meeting with Facebook executives. Hedera told them all about their product, hoping to get Facebook on as a client potentially.
Baird said:
“Honestly, I don’t view this as a literal plagiarism. But I do think that they have recognized that this council that we created was a good idea. Although theirs may have some slight differences, I think when we started this, people were saying, ‘that’s crazy, you can’t have a council.’ And now I think people are going to realize, no, you really need one.”
Even though at first, they wanted to compete with Facebook, now they hope to, at least strike a partnership and build their crypto project on a finished product – good luck with that.
Facebook has recently been under the accusation of stealing more than just an idea of a council but also of stealing a logo.
Current, an online banking company, has accused Facebook of borrowing its logo for the social network’s newly unveiled cryptocurrency play. The Calibra logo bears a resemblance to Current’s logo:
https://twitter.com/Logo_Designs/status/1142913237609930752
In the crowd of logos worldwide there is always someone who will claim “he invented it first”. So we have:
Hmmm….🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Libra logo looks VERY similar to @Ripple’s xCurrent logo.
I just hope $XRP prevails through this whole circus show. pic.twitter.com/JYB7gIrmV0
— The Crypto Ginger (@Crypto_Ginger) June 15, 2019
or:
Has anyone ever thought why the word “Wave” was on the design book by the ‘never seen’ Satoshi Nakamoto? Just a theory, but what if the “Wave” represents Facebook’s “Libra” coin? The Libra logo is eerily similar to a wave.. #xrp #XRPCommunity pic.twitter.com/5IXwwI6Hje
— King (@KingX_Dream) June 20, 2019
or:
https://twitter.com/BeChoctaw/status/1141787861706035203
But it’s not all folks, some are going so far that they are comparing Mark Zuckerberg with Tomas Edison who stole (and in the process, often f***ed up) Nikola Tesla’s ideas and inventions. Mark Zuckerberg is now allegedly destroying Bitcoin. Libra could harm those currencies that are not strong enough to survive in the fight field where every day we have new players. For what it matters – Bitcoin is pretty safe.
To me, it seems that it’s obvious that Hedera just wants to get attention and perhaps, become a partner with a largely known company like Facebook. Maybe they had the same idea about council but this idea, if not patented at the first place (just ask Craig Wright how it’s done) cannot be claimed as ones’ original idea. What would old Romans have to say then?