The FaceCoin
Emailed on October 18th, 2019 in The Friday Forward
Last Friday was a ROUGH day for the Facebook Libra team. In one day, four payment processors—Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, and Mercado Pago—withdrew from participation in the Libra Association, the Geneva-based group Facebook created to develop their virtual currency.
Their participation would have been significant because Libra faces a lot of skepticism from regulators. Companies like Visa and Mastercard have ample experience with regulations related to payments and could have helped Libra navigate those issues. But they also had the most to lose from confrontations with regulators.
The project faces skepticism from policymakers who aren't sure Facebook can be trusted to handle peoples' money responsibly, regardless of how the network is designed.
At the same time, Libra has not been popular in the conventional blockchain world. Many supporters of Bitcoin and Ethereum were attracted by these networks' decentralized architecture. They like the idea of a financial system that's outside the control of any single organization.
In Libra's case, it will be completely under the control of a single private group—the Libra Association, a major step backwards for most fans of decentralized currency.