Facebook’s Libra is already suffering from several political issues within the United States as several Congress members wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg in which they called to halt the development of Libra, Facebook’s native cryptocurrency.
Now, in Europe, France has announced that it will block the development of Facebook’s Libra as it could become a potential threat to “monetary sovereignty.”
During the opening of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conference on cryptocurrency, the French economic and finance minister Bruno Le Maire gave a statement regarding the social media giant’s Libra digital currency. He said that “I want to be clear: In these conditions, we cannot authorize the development of Libra on European soil.”
Facebook has been working on the Libra project for a while now and have faced severe criticism from various regulatory and political authorities. However, Facebook is all set to launch Libra in 2020 as its distribution and management will be handled in the crypto-friendly nation of Switzerland.
Its creators believe that Libra will become a global currency which may rival the U.S. dollar because of its more centralized infrastructure. It is important to note that there might be many technical similarities between Bitcoin(BTC)trade and Libra; but Libra is supposed to be more centralized and marked itself as a stablecoin (backed by other financial assets).
Libra will allow users to make payments across Facebook’s suite of apps, including WhatsApp and Messenger. Both of these applications have marked a billion of active users.
Not only in the United States and France, but several other nations have also raised concerns over Libra’s development, including the UK. Experts from the US, UK, and other European countries have made several remarks and issued statements about what they perceive as the crisis of Libra.
The US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs bashed Facebook with senators asserting that Facebook “doesn’t deserve our trust” and “should be treated like the profit-seeking corporation that it is.”
Damian Collins, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, told Financial News: “To me, [Libra] suggests that Facebook’s almost trying to turn itself into its own country.”
Facebook has also made it clear that it will not launch the Libra crypto project until it has satisfied the concerns of regulators around the world. Dante Disparte, Libra’s head of policy and communications said that Mr. Le Maire’s comments “further underscore the importance” of working with regulatory bodies.
“In the nearly three months since the intent to launch the Libra project was announced, we have become the world’s most scrutinized fintech effort,” he added.
