Stable-Coin Series: Regulatory Approach on Facebook's Libra Coin

Facebook, the social media giant, officially launched its much-anticipated cryptocurrency today with the launch of its official website and whitepaper. 

The official whitepaper of Libra, which was highly speculated cryptocurrency of Facebook, has been released on libra.org, with additional partners.

The cryptocurrency would be termed as ‘Libra’ and will be designed and developed on the Libra blockchain, as per the sources. Libra is reportedly a stable, scalable open source and the testnet is available on GitHub.

On the back of this development, we witnessed a mixed bag of reactions, the US Government has looked into the launch of the Whitepaper on Facebook’s cryptocurrency. Reportedly, a U.S. Senate-House lawmaker has claimed for terminating the recent developments on Libra until a company executive testifies before the Congress.

Maxine Waters, the chairperson of the House Financial Services Committee has passed the order,

“Facebook has data on billions of people and has repeatedly shown a disregard for the protection and careful use of this data,” she said in a statement. “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.”

While Representative Patrick McHenry, the senior Republican on her panel also raised the cause of concerns by stating that“Facebook is already too big and too powerful, and it has used that power to exploit users’ data without protecting their privacy. We cannot allow Facebook to run a risky new cryptocurrency out of a Swiss bank account without oversight,”

Elsewhere, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney at the ECB’s annual symposium in Portugal called on G7 countries to heavily scrutinize the Libra launch. He is it as: 

“anything that works in this world will become instantly systemic and will have to be subject to the highest standards of regulation. We will look at it very closely and in a coordinated fashion at the level of the G-7, the BIS, the FSB and the IMF. So open mind, but not open door.”

In the past, the governor undoubtedly bashed cryptocurrency, however, it appears to be coming round now as project Libra finally moves forward.

Bruno Le Maire, the French Finance Minister also raised his apprehensions over Libra’s property of being considered as currency and its prosperity thinking: “it is out of the question that Libra becomes a sovereign currency. It can’t and it must not happen.”

Currency Strength Index: FxWirePro's hourly BTC spot index is inching towards 89 levels (which is bullish), while hourly USD spot index was at -44 (mildly bearish), while articulating (at 06:21 GMT).

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