(BlockBar) On Tuesday afternoon (New York time), five Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee suddenly wrote to Facebook executives like Zuckerberg, demanding that they should immediately stop all work on the digital currency/wallet project Libra/Calibra.
Representatives of the Financial Services Committee of the United States House wrote “We write to request that Facebook and its partners immediately agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on Libra-its proposed cryptocurrency and Calibra-its proposed digital wallet.”
This letter refers to the project of libra and Calibra could help form a new global financial system centered around Switzerland, which would challenge U.S. monetary policy and dollar status. What’s more, it said, “This raises serious privacy, trading, national security, and monetary policy concerns for not only Faceook’s over 2 billion users, but also for investors, consumers, and the broader global economy.”
Earlier this month, Facebook announced plans to develop a new digital currency called Libra and Calibra, a digital wallet that stores the digital currency. A total of 28 companies, including Facebook, MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, Uber, Lyft, Spotify and so on, have established Libra Cooperative Organization, headquartered in Switzerland. Facebook has published a white paper and hopes to recruit more than 100 companies to join the organization.
However, the White Paper provides little information on the intentions, roles, potential uses and security of Libra/Calibra projects, which exposes the large-scale risks of the projects and the lack of clear regulatory protection. “If products and services like these are left improperly regulated and without sufficient oversight, they can pose systemic risks that endanger U.S. and global financial stability.” Several members of Congress pointed out in the letter. In the first three quarters of 2018, the global digital currency exchange was stolen as much as $1 billion, reflecting the current serious risks in this new and unregulated industry.
This letter further points out, “These risks are even more glaring in light of Facebook’s troubled past, where it did not always keep its users’ information safe.” It is worth mentioning that the Congressional Financial Services Committee is chaired by Maxine Waters, a Democratic congresswoman representing the 43rd District of California. This highly worded letter was signed by all other members of the Democratic Party. The lawmakers said that given that Facebook has reached more than a quarter of the world’s population, the company and its partners must immediately stop implementing the Libra/Calibra plan until regulators and Congress have the opportunity to review these issues and take action.
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