Rise and rise again, until Libras become Lions
After months of criticism, the Libra cryptocurrency project is pivoting. To appease skeptical regulators, Libra is shifting gears from a new global financial system to a more traditional payment network very similar to PayPal and with digital coins backed by individual fiat currencies. When the Libra Association announced the cryptocurrency last June, it intended to create a single global digital currency that would be pegged by a basket of fiat currencies from different countries. Politicians, regulators and central bankers everywhere were rattled and feared that Libra would undermine their power, control and threaten monetary sovereignty.
Facebook shook the world last year when it announced Libra. The idea was simple, to let billions of people send and receive money, using a single global digital currency, on their mobile phones with Facebook.
Around the globe, regulators raised red flags, with severe consequences on the original membership of the Libra Association. From the cryptocurrency’s announcement until January this year, almost 40% of the original members dropped out, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, PayPal, Mercado Pago, Ebay, Booking Holdings and Vodafone.
After the G7 nations and the US Congress agreed to block the launch of the Libra and the US Senate hearings in October, Mark Zuckerberg said that…