According to blockchain researchers at eToro, a digital brokerage platform, have stated that instead of supporting the Libra network and coin, Facebook should shift its focus to other third-party stablecoins.
The report was published by Finextra near the end of November. EtoroX Labs, which is the eToro’s blockchain research department, seems to think that while Facebook’s crypto project presents a “trailblazing opportunity” to achieve global financial services disruption, the social media network should modify its approach to maximize the opportunities to successfully complete the goal.
A Lot of Opposition
Regulatory issues, worldwide opposition and overall distrust have plagued Facebook’s project ever since it was unveiled in June. Politicians and lawmakers in the United States have referred to it as “ZuckBucks.”
However, eToroX Labs staffers are defending the notion that there could be something to stand for and fight, as the firm wants to embed a peer to peer payment ecosystem that has the potential to, allegedly, promote financial inclusion at a worldwide scale.
The researchers believe that the world’s biggest and most prominent social network could stand to benefit from delegating asset issuance to other third-party partners that are currently regulated. That way, they could skip the painful process to be accepted in specific countries, which has been a problem.
Fiat-Backed Stablecoins
EToro says that having several independent and fiat-backed stablecoins would be beneficial because it would eliminate the responsibility of currency control from Facebook, letting the influential service have the time and resources to focus on the development of the Calibra wallet to satisfy nearly 3 billion of users across the planet.
The online trading platform sure knows what it is talking about, since it issues several stablecoins backed by assets and fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar, pound sterling, and euro, among others.
Yoni Assia, eToro’s CEO, and founder, observed that the Libra Association should work to get regulators to give harmonized regulatory standards and a proper structure to properly cover the “governance of the third parties using the Libra chain for executing payments.”
He said that “the regulatory burden and associated compliance costs would befall those who use the ledger for their own gains, be it in the issuance of collateralized stablecoins, commodities or other financial instruments, effectively removing Libra from the money trail altogether.”
Answering Critics with Work
The announcement of the Libra project has brought Facebook a lot of criticism over the last few months. A recent episode was starred by David Rutter, the CEO of R3 (an enterprise software company,) who claimed that it was “ridiculously stupid.”
Others have followed a similar line of thought, but as the world continues to pile on, the Association has answered with development. According to reports, it has logged more than 30 projects and over 50,000 transactions on the Libra ecosystem in the last 60 days of intense testing.
The original plan was for Facebook to launch the whole ecosystem sometime in the first half of 2020, although that remains to be seen.
By Andres Chavez
