With lawmakers still trying to figure out how to regulate Facebook’s new Libra currency, the project has faced substantial setbacks in recent months, with over a quarter of the original partners pulling out amid ongoing scrutiny from regulators.
The project, which would rely on a coalition of companies—the Libra Association—to oversee it, originally started with 28 corporate members, before backlash from regulators and government officials began dwindling that number.to pull out of the coalition, an especially symbolic blow given that David Marcus, head of Facebook Libra, used to be the president of that company.
After losing seven of its biggest partners in less than a month, Libra is now left with 21 members, including Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Vodafone and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. With Facebook showing all signs of forging ahead, the initiative will have to mostly rely on the support of smaller payment companies, venture-capital firms, nonprofits and and telecom providers.In another strategic reversal as it faces growing skepticism over the launch of its digital currency Libra, Facebook
that instead of creating a new synthetic global currency, the project could use cryptocurrencies tied to national currencies, like the dollar or euro., Facebook has been under the microscope over its plans for a global cryptocurrency-based payments network. From the outset, Libra has met with significant pushback from lawmakers and financial regulators who are unsure about how to regulate the proposed currency and have expressed concern about privacy issues.