The phrase "a house leak happens to rain all night" is probably the most appropriate description of Facebook's Libra project.
After the person in charge of the Libra project was repeatedly questioned by the U.S. Congress, the U.S. government still insisted on Libra, and finally forced Zuckerberg to the fore, and will personally accept the congressional questioning.
Not only is the U.S. government full of doubts about the Libra project, but France and Germany among European countries have clearly expressed their resistance to it.
Under the continuous effect of these external pressures, Libra's cooperative franchisees have gradually shown a negative attitude. On October 4, the payment giant Paypal officially announced its withdrawal from Libra, which started the first shot of the giants leaving the field.
Recently, the British "Financial Times" reported that eBay and Stripe also decided to withdraw from the Libra project, becoming the second and third giants to withdraw.
Paypal and eBay also issued official statements when they withdrew, expressing respect for Libra's vision, but decided to withdraw.
If this situation continues, the real launch of the Libra project may be in the foreseeable future. Even if it can finally be launched, it is very likely to be a lame duck project in my opinion.
Because even if it goes online, every step it takes will be firmly stared at by the regulators, and once it goes beyond the threshold, it will be regulated. In this case, it cannot play freely or innovate freely.
Why? Because the Libra project touches the core interests of global governments: the right to issue currency.
Compared with decentralized cryptocurrencies such as BTC and Ethereum, the Libra project has an essential difference: it is a digital currency organized, designed, promoted, and operated by a centralized organization. Its entire route is essentially the same as that of BTC and Ethereum. different.
As the issuer and founder of Libra, Facebook controls every detail and every action of Libra. Facebook itself is regulated by various governments, especially the US government.
Therefore, once there is a conflict of interest between the operation of Libra and the regulatory agency, the regulatory agency can immediately find Facebook, its direct manager, to put pressure on it.
We can say that regulators are regulating Libra according to the law, and it can be said that regulators are safeguarding their own interests without hesitation.
This is like in a large company, under the nose of the boss, the subordinate employees want to start a new stove within the company to do things that conflict with the boss's interests. Will the boss agree?
Not to mention whether Libra is successful or not, even if it can be done, it is still just a currency issued by a centralized organization. In essence, it is the same as legal currencies such as the US dollar and the euro, except that the scope of circulation is different and the credit is different. The fundamental problem that fiat currency does not solve, it still does not solve.
The real role of Libra is to become a lubricant in Facebook's ecology, which is very likely to bring huge commercial benefits to Facebook.
Of course, Facebook also described grand moral goals and visions in Libra's white paper. However, without the support of commercial interests, moral pursuits cannot be established.
This is also the reason why many giants such as Internet payment and e-commerce have joined Libra at the beginning of its launch. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, and wants to take the opportunity to free ride on Libra to try to see how much commercial benefits can be brought by issuing digital currency within the system, so as to pave the way for their own future similar attempts in their own systems.
Now that everyone sees that Libra is under such great regulatory pressure, they jump ship and run away. "Husbands and wives are originally birds in the same forest, and they fly separately when disaster strikes." This is no exaggeration to describe the many participants of Libra.
The Libra project allows us to witness with our own eyes that centralized companies will encounter so many problems in issuing digital currencies, and none of these problems are related to the blockchain technology itself, and all of them are fighting with the interests of centralized institutions related.
After all, the arm can't twist the thigh. Is it Facebook or the governments? The results speak for themselves. So now it seems that Libra's prospects are worrying.
Issuing digital currency with Facebook's size, influence, and cooperation with regulatory agencies will encounter so many twists and turns, which basically proves that the company's issuance of digital currency is doomed to be a small matter, only under the permission of supervision Activities within a limited scope can never grow into a towering tree like a real decentralized digital currency.
This allows us to see the tenacious vitality of decentralized digital currencies led by BTC and Ethereum.
Decentralized digital currencies are running on another track that is completely cut off from centralized institutions. Their future is destined to subvert our cognition and create brilliant prospects.
