The secretary of the United States Treasury Steven Mnuchin reportedly stated that he has no problems with Facebook launching the Libra stablecoin project, but that it needs to follow a set of financial rules in any case.
“I’m fine if Facebook wants to create a digital currency, but they need to be fully compliant” with financial secrecy and also with anti-money laundering regulations already in place. In no way can this be used for terrorist financing,” he observed as quoted by specialized publication Bloomberg.
The secretary offered his thoughts about the matter in Washington D.C., the country’s capital city, at a meeting of the House Financial Services Committee after being presented with a question by a legislator.
Will It Meet Its Announced Launch Date?
The Libra project, one in which Facebook is reportedly a partner as well as other prominent and worldwide recognized companies, was announced near the end of June. The social media giant said that it would be up and running sometime in the first half of next year.
However, the project has been met with a sizable opposition in several critical locations, including the United States and the European Union. It is not clear if it will be able to maintain its promise to launch before 2020’s Q3.
After the details of the Libra project and ecosystem were announced in the middle of the year, Mnuchin explained that he has met with Facebook officials at least a dozen times. One of the primary subjects of the conversation has been the regulatory concerns that seemingly half of the world has.
The fact that Facebook is viewed as a privacy-invasive service that has been involved in lawsuits and other legal issues over the years for its practices, legislators around the world are worried that the people’s digital currencies will not be safe.
The intention is for Libra to function as a stablecoin to provide payments within the Facebook platforms and ecosystems, which involves a series of services, apps, and other things. The project has a wallet named Calibra, and the Libra Association also announced that the coin will be pegged to a basket of national currencies.
Unlikely to Develop Digital Dollar
At the gathering, Mnuchin also stated that the United States, as a country, is not likely to come up with a cryptocurrency in the immediate future, per the Bloomberg’s report.
“[Federal Reserve Chair Jerome] Powell and I have discussed this – we both agree that shortly, in the next five years, we see no need for the Fed to issue a digital currency,” he explained to the people present in the venue.
At the hearing, legislators also asked about China’s intention to develop its digital yuan in the not-so-distant future. Also, the European Central Bank plans to do a similar thing if the conditions claim for it.
People asked about it because, in the past, Powell has indicated that the Fed was evaluating the option of developing a digital dollar.
By Andres Chavez
