US Congress Requests Moratorium on Facebook’s Libra Stablecoin

[Vladdirescu87]

The United States House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services requested Facebook and its partners to stop the development of the Libra stablecoin.

In a July 2 letter addressed to Facebook CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and David Marcus, and COO Sheryl Sandberg, the lawmakers request that Facebook and its partners immediately agree to a moratorium on the development of Libra and its dedicated Calibra wallet.

The committee claims that the project may lead ”to an entirely new global financial system that is based out of Switzerland and intended to rival U.S. monetary policy and the dollar.” The committee notes that it believes such an endeavor could have serious implications:

”This raises serious privacy, trading, national security, and monetary policy concerns for not only Facebook's over 2 billion users, but also for investors, consumers, and the broader global economy.”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-congress-requests-moratorium-on-facebooks-libra-stablecoin

[Coyster]

I wouldn't use facebook coin, and I don't think anyone should, neither do I use facebook also, I've always been sceptical about their privacy issues, they meddle into absolutely everything and anything.

It'll be no different with the LIBRA, and anonymity may be a mere shadow for anyone who chooses to invest or trade with this coin.

[DarkDays]

Interesting how Libra is being single out as a potential threat, whereas there are literally thousands of other similar cryptocurrencies that have been laughed off as being unviable.

Now that there's a huge corporate entity backing a cryptocurrency, suddenly there is a problem? Well played U.S. Government, but I doubt there is any legal precedent to actually stop Facebook from developing or launching its stablecoin.

[bigcash2011]

I think they are now raising their voice against libra because they fear that a new democratic and free financial system can become a reality and people can enjoy tax free and borderless money transfer, there is no way governments can digest such a tech but in my opinion fb team should ignore these and move on with the project, they should move to favorable country if required but they should not quit.

[passwordnow]

Are they feeling threatened? There's two things on my mind about this news.
First, this is true that they are feeling Libra as a threat. Second, they are hyping the project and making publicity to it so that more people will be curious and interested to know more about it.

[DarkDays]

Are they feeling threatened? There's two things on my mind about this news.
First, this is true that they are feeling Libra as a threat. Second, they are hyping the project and making publicity to it so that more people will be curious and interested to know more about it.

Well the article clearly states that they consider Libra to be a threat to monetary policy.

Even though Libra will likely be smaller than Bitcoin when it launches, somehow the governments are singling out Libra as the problem.

[passwordnow]

Are they feeling threatened? There's two things on my mind about this news.
First, this is true that they are feeling Libra as a threat. Second, they are hyping the project and making publicity to it so that more people will be curious and interested to know more about it.

Well the article clearly states that they consider Libra to be a threat to monetary policy.

Even though Libra will likely be smaller than Bitcoin when it launches, somehow the governments are singling out Libra as the problem.

That's just my expression mate. 
It will definitely determined as a problem by them because they won't have anyway to control it unless they force FB to give them authority through making a law that will give favor to the gov't. I'm still having that second thought.

[virtualx]

I wouldn't use facebook coin, and I don't think anyone should, neither do I use facebook also, I've always been sceptical about their privacy issues, they meddle into absolutely everything and anything.

It'll be no different with the LIBRA, and anonymity may be a mere shadow for anyone who chooses to invest or trade with this coin.

Somehow I am with you on this, meanwhile the fear of Mark is the beginning of wisdom. Imagine controlling fb, insta, whatsapp and now libra. That's Too much power for a firm or a single individual.

My concern is with regards to the the privacy angle. It wont take ages for Mark to handover your data( libra users- "kyc") to the government or probably sell it. 

[ck343]

Libra Members Consider Quitting Project Due To Gov't Pressure: Report

At least three of Facebook’s early backers for its planned Libra stablecoin launch are considering withdrawing their support in light of the fierce regulatory pushback.

A report from the Financial Times on Aug. 23 alleges that two founding partners of Facebook’s Libra Association have held discussions about what their “right next steps” should be.
One further — again unnamed — backer is purportedly concerned that their public support for Libra will draw unwanted regulatory scrutiny of their own, independent businesses.

Blame games

In an interview with the Financial Times, one partner noted that:
“I think it's going to be difficult for partners who want to be seen as in compliance [with their own regulators] to be out there supporting [Libra].”

Another backer criticized the social media giant for its ill-conceived strategy, saying that:
“Some of those conversations [about regulation] should have taken place before the launch, to understand how regulators would think about this, so there wasn’t so much pushback.”

The tension reportedly goes both ways. One partner admitted that Facebook is itself becoming “tired of being the only people putting their neck out.”

Regulators swoop in

As reported this week, the European Commission’s antitrust regulators —  have become the latest to join the rounds of regulatory probes into Libra since the project’s unveiling this June.
The regulatory backlash governments, regulators and central bankers worldwide reached such a fever pitch that by late July, Facebook was prompted to warn its investors that the stablecoin may never be released.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-23/libra-members-consider-quitting-project-due-govt-pressure-report


Honestly, I didn't think that the regulators could withstand the power of the Libra Association.
I thought, the corporations backing Libra were too powerful.
I underestimated the regulators.
My bad

[Tipstar]

US and China are two of the most oppressive governments of two different nature. They do have high level of nationalist feeling as they have their population drive by their propaganda of being the super power of the world. They'd never let anything that is free enough to be within the reach of their citizens. So, if any tech want's to openly develop, they need to ditch these two countries.

[jacafbiz]

For me it is just a matter of time, Libra token would be launched, Facebook has so many lobbyist that would help them get the regulations they need for Libra to be  approved, this is just politicians talk, they need to show they world they can bark and with China looking to launch their own Cryptocurrencies expect more nations to follow suite

[Tylev]

Perhaps we just need to wait for further developments. Moreover, before the release of the Libra coin for a long time. Of course, having access to the data of its users, which is almost a third of the Earth’s population, if Facebook also controls their financial flows, it will turn into a big monster, where most of the information about the Earth’s population will be concentrated in one, moreover, private hands. In my opinion, this is very dangerous.
Yes, and recent events already clearly indicate that Libra coins, most likely, may not be. Most likely their Chinese version is from the government of China.

[Ozero]

After we saw not only the negative reaction of the SSA government to the possible appearance of the Libra coin, but also the same tough stance of the rest of the G-7 states, talk about this coin will most likely not have an object, since such a coin is unlikely when will appear. Such a global stable coin should be issued by several leading states or at least by the government of one state. It is impossible to trust such a coin in private hands. This may cause negative processes in the global financial market in the future.

[Jating]

US and China are two of the most oppressive governments of two different nature. They do have high level of nationalist feeling as they have their population drive by their propaganda of being the super power of the world. They'd never let anything that is free enough to be within the reach of their citizens. So, if any tech want's to openly develop, they need to ditch these two countries.

China yes, but US? I highly doubt that, you can call them nationalistic right now because of the Trump's administration, because obviously that is his theme as President.

For me it is just a matter of time, Libra token would be launched, Facebook has so many lobbyist that would help them get the regulations they need for Libra to be  approved, this is just politicians talk, they need to show they world they can bark and with China looking to launch their own Cryptocurrencies expect more nations to follow suite

Although it did have a lot of opposition in the US congress, but I think with Facebook's influence and lengths, I'm sure someone will lobby and see that it will go live as promise by Mark Z next year. So let's see how it will pan out.

[r_delossa]

It has been already discussed multiple times and I do not believe that Facebook will just shut down all the development. At the end, after several months of negotiations, SEC will approve Libra without any problems, they are just playing with each other.

[beerlover]

It didn't ask for "stop", it asked for it to be postponed so that they could research and analyze it a lot more so that they could give it a greenlight.

You have to understand in case of stuff like this its always easier to stop them from creating it and figuring out if there is any problems and then allowing them to exist afterwards instead of letting them create and then try to stop it when you figure something out while its on its existence, it would be a lot of hard work to stop something that is already in the hands of millions of peoples versus stopping it just before its launched.

So, congress is basically saying "before you do anything, let us take a look at it and see if we will find any problems, if there is none then you can launch it" right now.

[ganeshramk]

I wouldn't use facebook coin, and I don't think anyone should, neither do I use facebook also, I've always been sceptical about their privacy issues, they meddle into absolutely everything and anything.

It'll be no different with the LIBRA, and anonymity may be a mere shadow for anyone who chooses to invest or trade with this coin.

Too much of hype for Libra. Not sure where it is going to end up. I am very curious about it. As of now, I don't have a good feeling about this whole project.

[crenfrosck]

Oh, how infuriated is that bunch of kids when someone would like to ignore their monopoly on printing money  . This shows to me that crypto was and still is worth the effort. When the government wants to know what am I doing with my money, now that I see as a problem. It seems like a battle for our freedom is about to begin. Sooner or later, it is becoming inevitable.

[tippytoes]

It has been already discussed multiple times and I do not believe that Facebook will just shut down all the development. At the end, after several months of negotiations, SEC will approve Libra without any problems, they are just playing with each other.

Playing cat and mouse and at the end they will settle their differences. Libra development team will not surrender easy from this bottleneck. They know it is only a matter of time and they will win this situation.

It didn't ask for "stop", it asked for it to be postponed so that they could research and analyze it a lot more so that they could give it a greenlight.

You have to understand in case of stuff like this its always easier to stop them from creating it and figuring out if there is any problems and then allowing them to exist afterwards instead of letting them create and then try to stop it when you figure something out while its on its existence, it would be a lot of hard work to stop something that is already in the hands of millions of peoples versus stopping it just before its launched.

So, congress is basically saying "before you do anything, let us take a look at it and see if we will find any problems, if there is none then you can launch it" right now.

They are just buying time to take a better look on the project and maybe they will find ways on how to charge the users upon implementation.

[barbara44]

Perhaps we just need to wait for further developments. Moreover, before the release of the Libra coin for a long time. Of course, having access to the data of its users, which is almost a third of the Earth’s population, if Facebook also controls their financial flows, it will turn into a big monster, where most of the information about the Earth’s population will be concentrated in one, moreover, private hands. In my opinion, this is very dangerous.
Yes, and recent events already clearly indicate that Libra coins, most likely, may not be. Most likely their Chinese version is from the government of China.

It would really be a disaster for the US government if Facebook coin flies to be a global coin because it will have a way of disrupting the method they have been suing to protect the dollar and also may expose some of their financial hidden secret to Facebook team since they will be the one to have full control of the whole technology behind the Libra coin and this is why it is of more threat to them.

I think they are gradually killing the release process because I cants seems to get much update on the coin ever since they made their intention known to the public of releasing the Libra coin, I guess they have been oppressed already and we may never hear about the release of the coin again till further notice, maybe the next thing we will just see in letter of apology on media.