Some major names circulating Facebook's Libra project. However, with the exits of PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, the sea is getting tougher for Libra. (Image via The Conversation)

Facebook's Libra Association crumbles, payment giants leave one by one

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Internet & IT
Oct 12, 2019
1721
Following PayPal, payment giants behind Facebook’s Libra project began abandoning the project slowly. Last week, PayPal became the first of these payment companies to withdraw from the Libra project. Certainly, these withdrawals meant a huge blow for the cryptocurrency planned by Mark Zuckerberg.

Major names such as Mastercard, Visa, E-Bay, Stripe, and Mercado Pago followed just a week after PayPal’s exit, as reported by Financial Times and Bloomberg. With these withdrawals, there were no major payment services to support the project, making it worse for the fledging Libra even though there are more than 20 companies in it.

All of these withdrawals spoke with the same tone about Libra. They said that they would be anticipating its wake and development, yet they wanted to focus on their own development. With that said, they withdrew.

Seemingly, their withdrawal was caused by Libra’s notoriety among the U.S regulators who, on Wednesday, urged these five payment services to reconsider their involvement with Libra with cautions. The U.S regulators feared that the cryptocurrency would be misused for money-laundering.

The founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is scheduled to meet the House Committee on Financial Services on 23 October to discuss Libra and its launching plan.

Chief of Libra Project and the former president of PayPal, David Marcus, reacted to the news positively. He thanked Visa and Mastercard for joining the project until “the last 11th hour” and pointed out that the withdrawals, as the “change of magnitude”, was never good, yet it was “liberating”.

Source: https://bit.ly/2B1Cmw7

Business , Internet , Cryptocurrency , U.S , Facebook , Libra , Visa , Mastercard , PayPal