As the pressure continues to pile on Facebook, the social media giant is still determined to forge ahead with its grand crypto ambitions. As it realizes that the journey ahead is not going to be a smooth one the company is looking at alternative ways of getting its own currency off the ground and a series of stablecoins is its latest plan.
More Crypto Coins Added
Yesterday the Libra Association said that it was considering basing its cryptocurrency on a range of fiat currencies instead of a single synthetic one. As reported by Reuters, project lead David Marcus said that they were open to looking at alternative approaches following an avalanche of criticism and the defection of several major partners.
Talking to a panel at a banking seminar Marcus stated;
“We could do it differently. Instead of having a synthetic unit … we could have a series of stablecoins, a dollar stablecoin, a euro stablecoin, a sterling pound stablecoin, etc. We could definitely approach this with having a multitude of stablecoins that represent national currencies in a tokenized digital form,”
The original plan was to have Libra pegged to a basket of fiat currencies that the consortium would hold and control themselves. Regulators and bankers around the globe saw this as a threat to sovereignty and their own abilities to manage monetary policy.
The pressure was too much for a number of key project partners such as PayPal, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard who jumped ship leaving just one payments platform remaining. US senators threatened severe action against any companies associated with the ambitions crypto project.
There have also been major concerns that a global currency controlled by a private entity could be used for money laundering since the banks would not be able to monitor capital flows.
Last week the G7 group of nations issued a report outlining a number of challenges and concerns they had over the project. The Libra Association replied stating that there was nothing to worry about and all issues would be addressed but provided no evidence as to how that would occur.
More Flak For Facebook
The disparagement has continued as JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon joined the ranks of critics at a conference by the Institute of International Finance in Washington where he stated that it was a neat idea that’ll never happen.
He added that there are already a number of stablecoins and Facebook are not the first to come up with the idea. Dimon has long been a crypto critic, famously calling Bitcoin a fraud and threatening his staff with action should they buy any.
The bank launched its own JPM Coin earlier this year which proves that they are bullish on the technology providing they have full control over it.
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