There has been a plan by Facebook to create their own cryptocurrency called Libra. It has received a lot of publicity. Unfortunately for the world’s biggest social network, the vast majority of that publicity has been very bad. There are many politicians in the United States who are very concerned about the implications of a massive company like Facebook having their own cryptocurrency. This is an especially serious matter because roughly 2.4 billion people around the world use Facebook on a regular basis. Facebook representatives were grilled by a congressional committee about all of the various aspects of Libra. It is the goal of Facebook to have Libra launched sometime next year.
Politicians in the United States are not the only ones who are concerned about Libra. It turns out that lawmakers in both Germany and France have already said in no uncertain terms that they will not allow Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency to be used in their countries. They believe that Libra will cause the value of the Euro to drop. They also think that it could lead to money being privatized illegally. Both Germany and France are already in the stages of creating their own cryptocurrencies. There is not a time frame for them to be launched.
The two largest countries in the world in terms of population are China and India. Both of those countries have already put severe limitations on the use of cryptocurrencies within their borders. It is believed that many other large and powerful countries will be doing the same thing in the coming months. The fear of many people is that Facebook becomes the equivalent of a reserve bank from their massive amount of global users.
As you might expect, Facebook is doing their best to downplay the notion that Libra is going to destabilize the economies of countries around the world and cause global currency values to plummet. Facebook will obviously need to have the permission of each country to offer its Libra cryptocurrency within their borders. Therefore, they are saying all the right things in order to secure that permission. Facebook says they will abide by all financial laws in every country in which Libra is made available. It is clear that Germany and France are not buying what Facebook is selling. How many other countries around the world will follow their lead? Only time will tell. We will find out soon enough.
