Libra, Facebook’s stablecoin project, keeps making noise. Last week, European authorities claimed that the asset constitutes a threat to countries’ monetary sovereignty. However, the ecosystem developers and leaders, most specifically those associated with the Calibra digital wallet, have replied to those comments and, naturally, to defend the asset that is, allegedly, going to be available in the first half of 2020.
The Co-Creator of Libra, David Marcus, went to his official Twitter account and defended his project in a thread. He stated that he wanted to “debunk” the notion started by the French Economy and Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, which claims Libra is a threat to nations’ monetary sovereignty.
Le Maire’s Remarks
Le Maire, an influential voice in the European financial landscape, stated last week that thanks to Libra, “the monetary sovereignty of states is under states is under threat,” and he also said that would block the development of the ecosystem in European soil.
Marcus, however, explained that Libra will be “backed 1:1 by a basket of strong currencies. This means that for any unit of Libra to exist, there must be the equivalent value in its reserve.” As a result, and to the contrary of what many people may think, Libra won’t create “new money,” and that will “strictly remain the province of sovereign nations.”
Marcus, in front of the Calibra digital wallet and payment ecosystem, also stated that Libra is actually being developed to be a better and more efficient payment network using specific national currencies and “delivering meaningful value to consumers all around the world.”
Despite his reply to Le Maire and similar sentiments around the European area, in which financial watchdogs have made it clear that they do not want Libra to be developed there, Marcus embraced the attention from the regulators.
He stated that “we believe strong regulatory oversight preventing the Libra Association from deviating from its full 1:1 backing commitment is desirable,” showing that he is not necessarily averse to having the network constantly surveilled.
Marcus offered his thoughts about the matter in the midst of a meeting of 26 central banks in Switzerland to discuss the Libra project and its potential impact in the world and European financial landscape.
An Important Meeting
Among the entities meeting in the influential European nation are the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the U.S. Federal Reserve, but there will be plenty others. Those three have showed concern about Facebook’s and Libra’s potential privacy breaches in the past, considering the former’s troubled past in said matter.
Marcus made it clear that he is not afraid of watchdogs and legislators, and in the thread, he said that he planned to keep working with “central banks, regulators, and lawmakers to ensure we address their concerns through Libra’s design and operations.”
On a different subject, he also tweeted that he is “looking forward to the Libra Association taking on full leadership of the project soon after its charter has been ratified, so I can focus on building Calibra.”
By Andres Chavez
