Should Countries Worry About Facebook’s Libra?

Facebook is a mover in the world of social media. But this time around, Facebook is attempting to dabble in the world of cryptocurrencies. It was announced that Facebook is planning to have its own cryptocurrency known today as Libra. It was one of the reasons why Bitcoin is currently nearing $10K. In addition to this, there are many questions being raised whether or not it is going to be allowed by regulators.

G7 Concerned Over Libra?

There was even a call for Facebook to delay the plan to have its own cryptocurrency while the regulators try to figure out what to do. France recently decided to have a task force within the G7 nations in order to pay close attention to what Libra is going to bring to the table. The governor of French Central Bank, Francois Villeroy De Galhau, announced that the task force is going to be headed by European Central Bank board member Benoit Coeure. The primary role of the task force is to figure out how digital currencies can be regulated and at the same time avoid the role of cryptos in money laundering and other crimes.

It is no secret that during the early days of Bitcoin, the digital currency has been used in underground activities. But after ten years, digital currencies are slowly becoming a staple in finance. Bruno Le Marie who works as France’s finance minister mentioned that “It’s out of question”, he thinks that Libra will “become a sovereign currency”. He continued saying that “It can’t and it must not happen”.

For Villeroy, he commented that France is still open when it comes to innovations but is still firm when it comes to regulations.

Facebook’s Co-Founder Warning Against Libra?

Chris Hughes who is one of the co-founders of Facebook thinks that Libra is quite dangerous considering how it can allow corporations to have leverage when it comes to influencing nations. Chris Hughes is known for his role during the infancy of Facebook. He believes that global regulators should do what they can to intervene to slow down the progress of this cryptocurrency.

There are 27 other corporations that are involved in this project by Facebook. Among those companies include the likes of PayPal, Uber, and Vodafone. He mentioned that “If global regulators don’t act now, it could very soon be too late”.

He also believes that the corporations could do enough in order to “disrupt and weaken” different countries. There is a chance that governments will have a more difficult time to manage their own fiscal policy.

Until today, there are still a lot of questions that have to be answered by regulators. In fact, they haven’t figured out cryptocurrencies yet. The good news though is that there is some progress in today’s industry. There are the likes of JP Morgan and Facebook that are now interested to dabble in blockchain technology. But is there really something alarming about Libra? Could Facebook increase the rate of crypto adoption? Hughes believes that “It has similarly transformed mobile messaging and news and journalism faster than many imagined” Given the size of Facebook, this could be possible.