Facebook coin Libra already targeted by US government

[Baofeng]

Rep. Patrick McHenry, senior Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, wrote a letter Tuesday to committee Chair Maxine Waters, a Democrat, demanding a hearing on the Facebook cryptocurrency initiative.

Maxine's full statement is below. What is most surprising is that she is, don't shoot us, right.

Facebook has data on billions of people and has repeatedly shown a disregard for the protection and careful use of this data. It has also exposed Americans to malicious and fake accounts from bad actors, including Russian intelligence and transnational traffickers. Facebook has also been fined large sums and remains under a Federal Trade Commission consent order for deceiving consumers and failing to keep consumer data private, and has also been sued by the government for violating fair housing laws on its advertising platform.

“With the announcement that it plans to create a cryptocurrency, Facebook is continuing its unchecked expansion and extending its reach into the lives of its users. The cryptocurrency market currently lacks a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protections for investors, consumers, and the economy. Regulators should see this as a wake-up call to get serious about the privacy and national security concerns, cybersecurity risks, and trading risks that are posed by cryptocurrencies. Given the company’s troubled past, I am requesting that Facebook agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on developing a cryptocurrency until Congress and regulators have the opportunity to examine these issues and take action. Facebook executives should also come before the Committee to provide testimony on these issues.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-18/maxine-waters-demands-facebook-stop-all-development-libra-crypto-project

Libra hasn't started yet but it looks like the US government wanted to bring it down already. No less than a congressional hearing is being requested here and bring some light about this so called coin. US are really coming down hard in recent days on everything that is related to crypto. But this time, they wanted to shoot it down before it goes on a full blown and un-controllable situation.

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[figmentofmyass]

The cryptocurrency market currently lacks a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protections for investors, consumers, and the economy. Regulators should see this as a wake-up call to get serious about the privacy and national security concerns, cybersecurity risks, and trading risks that are posed by cryptocurrencies.

it seems like they're gonna use this as an excuse to usher in new legislation, and hastily at that. fingers crossed that the regulations aren't too heavy handed.....it sure sounds like they will be.

somebody must have sent out a memo on crypto to all the USA agencies. the SEC, CFTC, IRS, and now congress are all swooping in at once. i'm getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

[Juggy777]

Rep. Patrick McHenry, senior Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, wrote a letter Tuesday to committee Chair Maxine Waters, a Democrat, demanding a hearing on the Facebook cryptocurrency initiative.

Maxine's full statement is below. What is most surprising is that she is, don't shoot us, right.

Facebook has data on billions of people and has repeatedly shown a disregard for the protection and careful use of this data. It has also exposed Americans to malicious and fake accounts from bad actors, including Russian intelligence and transnational traffickers. Facebook has also been fined large sums and remains under a Federal Trade Commission consent order for deceiving consumers and failing to keep consumer data private, and has also been sued by the government for violating fair housing laws on its advertising platform.

“With the announcement that it plans to create a cryptocurrency, Facebook is continuing its unchecked expansion and extending its reach into the lives of its users. The cryptocurrency market currently lacks a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protections for investors, consumers, and the economy. Regulators should see this as a wake-up call to get serious about the privacy and national security concerns, cybersecurity risks, and trading risks that are posed by cryptocurrencies. Given the company’s troubled past, I am requesting that Facebook agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on developing a cryptocurrency until Congress and regulators have the opportunity to examine these issues and take action. Facebook executives should also come before the Committee to provide testimony on these issues.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-18/maxine-waters-demands-facebook-stop-all-development-libra-crypto-project

Libra hasn't started yet but it looks like the US government wanted to bring it down already. No less than a congressional hearing is being requested here and bring some light about this so called coin. US are really coming down hard in recent days on everything that is related to crypto. But this time, they wanted to shoot it down before it goes on a full blown and un-controllable situation.

This is a quick decision by USA it’ll interesting what conditions they’ll impose on Facebook coins, however all should remember that those conditions won’t effect bitcoins. Facebook Coin is a centralised stable coin, and Bitcoin is a decentralised coin hence bitcoin won’t be effected at all.

[CryptoBry]

This is just another normal oversight and they gonna conduct hearings for the sake of getting enlightened by the Libra people on many areas of concerns...afterwards nothing will happen. They know that Facebook is and will always be for coming years the most influential social media group and though there are some lawmakers who can opt to break Facebook nothing concrete has been decided. Eventually, there can be some changes on the Libra project as a result of lawmakers' inquiry but it does not mean that this is gonna be the end of the project. There is no visible angst or worry from massive members of the country about it...am sure that in between the government and Facebook many will choose Facebook and will thrash the government.

[Kemarit]

The cryptocurrency market currently lacks a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protections for investors, consumers, and the economy. Regulators should see this as a wake-up call to get serious about the privacy and national security concerns, cybersecurity risks, and trading risks that are posed by cryptocurrencies.

it seems like they're gonna use this as an excuse to usher in new legislation, and hastily at that. fingers crossed that the regulations aren't too heavy handed.....it sure sounds like they will be.

somebody must have sent out a memo on crypto to all the USA agencies. the SEC, CFTC, IRS, and now congress are all swooping in at once. i'm getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Scary thought, but it has some weight on it.

[1] CFTC launches action against UK-based crypto scheme Control-Finance
[2] SEC sues Kik for US$100M for ‘illegal’ securities offering of digital tokens

@CryptoBry - I don't think that those powerful men and women will just go on that requested hearing and then get nothing out of it. For sure they have vested interest here and it doesn't look good right now if you are a US based crypto enthusiast.

[LTU_btc]

Interesting. I didn't expected thst US government may start actions against Facebook coin Libra. Mainly because it has not much common with crypto. Libra will be centralized stablecoin. It interesting how this story will develop, but I doubt that US government will stop this big project.

Bitcoin will be junk/trash after ban in 2 big countries

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5152399.0

Sorry, but I think it's nonsense, and it's not related with this topic at all.

[dothebeats]

It seems that the government (the US in particular) is ready to jump on whatever things that might get uncontrolled knowing that a lot of people would surely support it. In the case of Facebook and Libra, they have stressed that Facebook Inc. has already been fined a lot of times due to their malpractices with their tech, but seriously is that enough grounds to lay waste on their new tech? I think not. Also, their regulators are one of the worst in the world and doesn't seem to have any sort of plan to even help the rising demands for a comprehensible regulations on new Fintech such as cryptocurrencies. The US government has always been a bully to everyone, so it's no surprise that they would want to shut down Libra before it goes big.

[Payme21]

I think the politicians are targeting the company (Facebook) as a whole and not just the coin but its inevitable that crypto will soon run the finance world

[peter0425]

I think the politicians are targeting the company (Facebook) as a whole and not just the coin but its inevitable that crypto will soon run the finance world

This could be true. We all know that they have fined $1.6 billion for its privacy issues last year when hackers stoles lots of data from them. Maybe US government wanted  to see how Libra or Facebook can ensure that it won't happen again. Or US is just trying to hide their intentions here by using this as a excuse and break the monopoly of Facebook?

[dnpotter]

This is a quick decision by USA it’ll interesting what conditions they’ll impose on Facebook coins, however all should remember that those conditions won’t effect bitcoins. Facebook Coin is a centralised stable coin, and Bitcoin is a decentralised coin hence bitcoin won’t be effected at all.

Yes, an astonishingly quick response.  I guess it's not surprising that there would be a lot of knee-jerk reactions: 5th biggest global company launches ambitious project to develop the "internet of money".  It's like Zuck is going for global domination.  He's just missing his white cat.  Hopefully Libra will attract all government and regulatory attention and take the pressure off the pure coins.

[kamBlanV]

I think the US government must classify between stable coins and volatility coins.  we know that large companies like vodafone, visa, mastercard are Libra partners.  Libra is only coin stable with depend on utility.  and in my opinion.  that's a bad decision.

[bloodyvio]

because they are centralized, and of course Libra is targeted by the government
that's the risk of crypto being centralized or under control the organization

and this is different from bitcoin because there is no organization in charge or the person behind it

all hail bitcoin BTC BTC BTC

[Duzter]

For some reason libra from Facebook has got targeted, but truly this will gets faded off in a short or within months. As the election campaigning has begun, the government is in much need of the support from facebook. Soon the governments around the world will loss control, which is the reason for governments targeting cryptocurrencies.

[DreamStage]

I am one of those who accepts it being targeted by US government or any kind of countries government because as it was stated:

Facebook has data on billions of people and has repeatedly shown a disregard for the protection and careful use of this data. It has also exposed Americans to malicious and fake accounts from bad actors, including Russian intelligence and transnational traffickers.

So i do want it to be stopped before it's too soon to make it free for everyone even if they ask for account verification, 3rd party users can use Libra for their own illegal actions.
Because the first thing it poped out of my mind when i read this Libra coin project was that Facebook in fact is one of the most social medias that uses Private Data for his own beneficial.

And since Libra is a crypto currency (basically) and they want some kind of account validation where they will probably use Users data (once again) those 2 things will not end up quite as expected or even accepted by it's users.

[creeps]

because they are centralized, and of course Libra is targeted by the government
that's the risk of crypto being centralized or under control the organization

and this is different from bitcoin because there is no organization in charge or the person behind it

all hail bitcoin BTC BTC BTC

As expected for a too much hype coin, it gets the attention of the government and since its a centralized coin then they have to follow the regulations not unless they create a coin outside the US government since we know there's a big tension there when it comes to regulations. Libra coin should pass this trial or else, this will just become another shitcoin. Bitcoin is extraordinary, no one can beat this giant coin even if the big companies created their own coin.

[jakelyson]

I think the politicians are targeting the company (Facebook) as a whole and not just the coin but its inevitable that crypto will soon run the finance world

Of course they are, they do not want to give more power to Facebook. As is, Facebook is already too powerful, if you add currency control in its table, it will be too powerful.

I think that it is good that US government wants to regulate this coin as early as possible.

Hopefully Libra will attract all government and regulatory attention and take the pressure off the pure coins.

That is if the government can distinguish stable coin from a decentralized coin. In my opinion, they see Libra and Bitcoin as the same. The worst would be they implement whatever regulation they come up on Libra to Bitcoin as well.

[Dreamchaser21]

This is Facebook coin and we know US government are trying to destroy Facebook because of its suspicious security even if the Board Member want Zuckerberg wants him to be out of the company. This is too obvious propaganda, well if ever Facebook failed on this hopefully they will find another option which is to adopt bitcoin alone or to create somewhere else aside from US.

[hatshepsut93]

My prediction is that Facebook will discuss these concerns with regulators, it will promise to comply with their demands, they will give Facebook green light to launch it, then Facebook will keep doing what they are doing - harvesting data, but the government won't really care as long as Facebook will comply with KYC/AML and other demands, won't pose too much threat to banks, which they won't because not too much people will be using this coin anyway.

[Artemis3]

Rep. Patrick McHenry, senior Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, wrote a letter Tuesday to committee Chair Maxine Waters, a Democrat, demanding a hearing on the Facebook cryptocurrency initiative.

Maxine's full statement is below. What is most surprising is that she is, don't shoot us, right.

Facebook has data on billions of people and has repeatedly shown a disregard for the protection and careful use of this data. It has also exposed Americans to malicious and fake accounts from bad actors, including Russian intelligence and transnational traffickers. Facebook has also been fined large sums and remains under a Federal Trade Commission consent order for deceiving consumers and failing to keep consumer data private, and has also been sued by the government for violating fair housing laws on its advertising platform.

“With the announcement that it plans to create a cryptocurrency, Facebook is continuing its unchecked expansion and extending its reach into the lives of its users. The cryptocurrency market currently lacks a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protections for investors, consumers, and the economy. Regulators should see this as a wake-up call to get serious about the privacy and national security concerns, cybersecurity risks, and trading risks that are posed by cryptocurrencies. Given the company’s troubled past, I am requesting that Facebook agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on developing a cryptocurrency until Congress and regulators have the opportunity to examine these issues and take action. Facebook executives should also come before the Committee to provide testimony on these issues.”

Libra hasn't started yet but it looks like the US government wanted to bring it down already. No less than a congressional hearing is being requested here and bring some light about this so called coin. US are really coming down hard in recent days on everything that is related to crypto. But this time, they wanted to shoot it down before it goes on a full blown and un-controllable situation.

Actually this is too convenient for Libra. If anything, i find it suspicious that this representative wants a hearing about it (at this point when it was just announced). This is "free" publicity to get the attention of the public, probably on Zuckerberg controlled social media, so they can play the "sympathy" card.

This coin is already looking bad from it white paper, who knows whats its code looks like. Only an elite of millionaires are allowed to run nodes, and its partially backed in fiat. Its a mess, the like only someone who knows nothing of crypto but wants its own could conceive.

Its technically garbage no matter who is behind it. Zuckerberg could have subcontracted someone elsewhere to develop it, to avoid the monopoly accusation, but to me he actually wants the attention...

[pageraji]

Western union shares immediately declined as news of Libra worldwide, many of these concerns will further eliminate the USD value in the global market, go go libra..