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, Edit: Sige, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
At 10 am EST on July 17th, the House of Representatives hearing on Libra, Facebook's cryptocurrency project, was held as scheduled. The hearing was organized by the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the theme was "Examining Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency and its impact on consumers, investors, and the U.S. financial system." David Marcus, head of Facebook's blockchain business and cryptocurrency Libra project, attended the hearing as a representative and accepted questions from members of the House of Representatives.This is the second hearing on Libra in the U.S. Congress, compared to the previous day's Senate hearing (for details, see), the confrontation in the House of Representatives hearing was extremely fierce. During the period, Patrick McHenry, the vice chairman of the Financial Services Committee of the United States House of Representatives, was even more inconspicuous, bluntly saying that Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin is an impossible The power to stop, the US government should not stop this kind of innovation, and the government can't stop this kind of innovation, just like a Bitcoin fanatic.
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Five key points of Libra information disclosure
At the same time, in addition to occasionally playing Tai Chi with members of Congress, Marcus still disclosed more information about Libra, and LinkDD sorted out some of the key points:
1. Half of Libra's reserves are in U.S. dollars. David Marcus said in an interview with members of the House of Representatives that the reserves supporting Libra will mainly be US dollar funds, which will account for half of the proportion. Other reserves include euro, pound and yen funds, and these reserves will be funded by G7 Regulators will monitor that 50% of dollar reserves will not be converted into other currencies, such as the Venezuelan currency, which has fallen sharply in the face of hyperinflation.
Yuan Yuming, CEO of Huobi China and director of Huobi China Blockchain Research Institute, once told ChainDD that if Libra becomes a universal value measure on a global scale, what is in the basket of currencies will become very important, and those who do not Sovereign currencies included in a basket of currencies will face a huge impact. If half of Libra's anchored basket of currencies is actually US dollars, does this mean that the hegemony of the US dollar will be further strengthened. And how should China respond?
2. "One country, one policy", in different countries, Facebook will implement Libra in different ways. When Rep. French Hill (French Hill) asked how to implement it in countries with currency controls, David Marcus said that Facebook will implement Libra in different ways in different countries.
When faced with the question of whether Chinese companies in the House of Representatives will become members of Libra, Marcus did not respond positively, but said that this is determined by the Libra Association. The principle of the Libra Association is that if Libra cannot be used in a certain country, then Enterprises in this country should not be run as members of the Libra Association. This seems to imply that if China allows citizens to use Libra, then Chinese companies can also become members of the Libra Association.
3. Libra's two "magic weapons" to make money. The congressman asked how Facebook could use Libra to make money. David Marcus responded that there are two ways: first, the ability of billions of people to conduct transactions can promote the development of small businesses and indirectly promote the development of Facebook's advertising business; , Over time, if we win the trust of users using the Calibra wallet, we will eventually expand our business from online and offline merchants to loans and personal financial management, as well as establish partnerships with financial institutions. However, because Calibra wants to achieve almost zero-cost P2P transactions, Calibra will not consider profitability in recent years.
5. The guns are directed at WeChat Pay and Alipay. At the hearing, David Marcus made it clear that Lirba is definitely not a security, it may be a commodity, but Facebook wants to see it as a payment tool, and for the first time acquiesced that Libra will compete with Alipay and WeChat Pay fact.
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The differences between the chairman and vice chairman of the committee reappear
According to previous news from ChainDD, in the previous Senate hearings, the attitudes of the participating senators were quite different. Members represented by the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Crabber, are generally optimistic about Libra. Although they admit the uncertainty of Libra's future, they still praise the goal of Facebook's payment system. The Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Sherrod Brown (Sherrod Brown), represents a more cautious faction, unwilling to believe Facebook, and said that if Facebook insists on advancing Libra, it may propose legislation for regulation.
The "fifty-fifty open" at the Senate hearing made the public more curious about the attitude of the members of the House of Representatives towards Libra.
In the opening statement of the House of Representatives hearing, Maxine Waters, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, compared Facebook to a combination of Wells Fargo and Equifax, saying that Facebook will have both banks and The ability to disseminate information, and it should be regulated like the former two. At the same time, the House of Representatives will evaluate the impact of Facebook's digital currency Libra and its wallet Calibra on the financial system, and discuss the emergence of a bill called "Keep Big Technology Companies Away from Finance Act" ( A discussion draft of the Keep Big Tech Out of Finance Act, which is said to prevent tech giants from becoming financial institutions.
That's right, the drama that took place in the Senate hearings was repeated in the House of Representatives! However, the position of the chairman and vice chairman seems to have been switched this time.
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The smell of gunpowder in "World War II" is even stronger
Compared with the Senate hearing, the scene of the House hearing is more full of gunpowder.
Some congressmen even said that Libra's damage to the United States is comparable to 9/11, and it is absolutely a godsend for drug dealers, sanction evaders and other criminals. He even threatened that if Libra is used for terrorist attacks, 100 lawyers will not be able to save Zuckerberg, and he will wait to be tried by the American people.
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The information gap between innovation and supervision is difficult to bridge
Meanwhile, another feature of the House hearings was the growing information gap between lawmakers and Facebook, an industry innovator.
The theme of this House of Representatives hearing was originally called "Examining Facebook's Proposed Cryptocurrency and Its Impact on Consumers, Investors, and the American Financial System" in English. The word used here is "Cryptocurrency", which is translated into encrypted currency in Chinese. People can't help but think, from the perspective of the House of Representatives, whether Libra is divided into cryptocurrency areas such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. David Marcus also grasped this point in his response, specifically calling Libra a digital currency rather than a cryptocurrency, and emphasized that Libra is very different from cryptocurrencies.
During the period, some members of the parliament asked, what is the significance of Libra using legal currency as a reserve fund? Presumably Marcus is also very helpless. Doesn’t this congressman take a look at the Libra white paper before attending the hearing? Marcus responded that this is why Libra is different from cryptocurrencies. The price of cryptocurrencies is extremely volatile, while Libra is more suitable as a payment tool because of its legal currency reserves and stable prices.
