Editor's Note: This article comes fromNakamoto Shallot (ID: xcongapp), Author: Sister Xiaocong, published by Odaily with authorization.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Nakamoto Shallot (ID: xcongapp)
, Author: Sister Xiaocong, published by Odaily with authorization.
Libra, an alien star that shakes the world, has been under the attention of the whole world since its appearance. With regulators pressing hard and the confidence of founding members eroding, Libra's future looks increasingly uncertain.
However, despite the difficult road ahead, the alien star Libra does not seem to give up. Moreover, Libra's detailed roadmap has also been made public, and developers are focusing on the launch of the Libra mainnet.
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PayPal, Visa, Master "retire from the group", Libra: this journey is not easy
On October 4, PayPal, one of the founding members, issued a statement announcing its withdrawal from the Libra Association. In the cracks of global regulation, Libra ushered in another blow.
PayPal stated in a statement that the company has decided to abandon further participation in the Libra project initiated by Facebook and will continue to focus on the company's existing mission and business focus.
Although PayPal said, "It will continue to support Libra and look forward to continuing the dialogue on cooperation methods in the future. Facebook has always been a long-term strategic partner of PayPal and will continue to cooperate with Facebook and support Facebook."
However, PayPal's move has caused Libra to suffer another setback, and most of the members of the Facebook digital currency development team come from PayPal (such as Calibra head David Marcus), and the confidence of other members of the Libra Association has also begun to shake.
According to the Wall Street Journal, two financial institutions, Visa and MasterCard, are considering withdrawing from the Libra Association. Digital payments firm Stripe is also considering an exit. Whether Paypal's previous parent company eBay will withdraw from the alliance is currently unclear.
The Financial Times also reported that two initial members are considering their next steps, and one initial member is concerned that their public support for Libra will attract unnecessary regulatory scrutiny of their own business. PayPal has previously expressed concerns about Libra, also saying its membership in the Libra Association is not a binding commitment.
The Libra Association is composed of 28 financial, e-commerce, digital currency and Internet companies, of which PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard are core members.
After PayPal announced its withdrawal from the Libra Association, Libra's official Twitter tweeted several times:
2. We recognize that change is difficult, and that every organization embarking on this journey must make its own risk and reward assessment of the changes Libra promises.
3. We are looking forward to the first meeting of the Libra Committee (Note: the word here is Libra Council, not Libra Association, the official expression of the Libra Association) meeting to be held within 10 days, and will share the latest progress after the meeting, including 1,500 interested parties Details of participating entities.
Despite the loss of founding members, Libra still has the support of a large number of companies, and 1,500 entities are willing to participate in this risk assessment activity alone.
From this, it may be seen that despite the difficult road ahead, Libra does not seem to give up.
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Central banks of many countries encircled and suppressed, Libra survived in the cracks
Existing laws are not binding on the emerging Libra, and the concept of Libra is beyond the existing regulatory system. However, most regulators around the world are still skeptical of Libra, worried about its possibility of subverting the world's financial system, compromising privacy and facilitating money laundering.
The doubts about Libra at the national level have never stopped, and have even become stronger.
Following the hearings of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in July, on September 17, Libra was once again "summoned". It faced the "joint test" of 26 central banks in Switzerland, and many central banks were skeptical about it. For example, Benoit Coeure, a member of the European Central Bank's Executive Committee, warned that "the threshold for regulatory approval will be very high" in order for Libra to operate in the EU.
The EU will also press the G20 to respond to stablecoins such as Libra, calling for tech tax reform. EU finance ministers will tell their counterparts at the G20 meeting in mid-October that a global regulatory response to "stablecoins" such as Facebook's Libra is needed.
In addition, the United States has always been the most cautious about Libra, and even hopes to block Libra's plan.
U.S. Congressman Brad Sherman said that Libra is obviously a mutual fund and asked the SEC to stop them from issuing coins. Former Federal Reserve official Simon Potter says plans to end dollar dominance through a digital currency (Libra) don't make sense.
In addition, the Department of Justice ordered Facebook to halt its end-to-end encryption program, urging the company not to proceed without "making sure that users' security remains uncompromised."
Doubt, Rejection, Opposition: Over 50,000 Signatures of "Stop Libra" Online Petition
Since the launch of Libra, not only has there been strict regulation, but there have also been voices of opposition from the public.
A petition to ban “Facebook funds” posted on WeMove.EU has so far received 57,889 signatures out of the required 75,000 signatures, according to Xiao Cong. The petition was completed in collaboration with the NGO Financial Watch. The petition calls on the entire European Union to unite against Facebook to halt Libra's rollout. The petition includes a letter addressed to Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president-designate, European Central Bank (ECB) president Maria Draghi and future ECB president Christine Lagarde.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is also not very optimistic about Libra's progress. In an interview with Fortune magazine, he said that he would bet that Libra will not be launched before the end of 2022.
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Libra sets off a wind of innovation and imitation
Chinese regulators are also actively discussing the impact and countermeasures that Libra will bring. Most market views believe that the rapid advancement of the central bank's digital currency this year is to deal with Libra.
Recently, when talking about Facebook's Libra, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said that in the face of challenges from Internet giants such as Facebook, a central bank digital currency called "e-euro" will be introduced. He said that one of the core sovereignty of the country is the issuance of currency, and we will not leave it to private companies.
In addition, Japan, Singapore, Canada and other countries are also considering issuing their own digital currencies.
Not only that, but various versions of Libra are also on the horizon. For example, at the general meeting of the Taiwan Yushan Science and Technology Association, the founder of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary of Foxconn Technology Group) said that it is planning to launch the Taiwan version of Libra.
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The project is still moving forward at a fast pace, and the mainnet launch is just around the corner
Since the release of the Libra digital currency white paper in June this year, although it has caused many doubts and objections, the development progress of the project is still gratifying. Currently, Libra developers have released multiple blockchain browsers, such as Libranaut, Libraview, Librabrowser, and Libexplorer. Some projects also integrate the Libra testnet into their wallets, such as ZenGo.
Libra digital wallet development company Calibra has been working on developing Libra Core on GitHub, and the team has released two new guides: one for running the Move app locally and one showing how to run your own network.
