the Silicon Valley social-networking giant officially announced what its buzzy and secretive blockchain team has been working on for the past year or so: A new cryptocurrency that aims to provide fast, cheap, and secure online payments by smartphone, sidestepping the traditional financial system.
the Silicon Valley social-networking giant officially announced what its buzzy and secretive blockchain team has been working on for the past year or so: A new cryptocurrency that aims to provide fast, cheap, and secure online payments by smartphone, sidestepping the traditional financial system.
Although Facebook is building Libra, and plans to run the project through the end of this year, eventually it plans to cede the project to a larger community. The company has formed the nonprofit Libra Association with 27 other partners to oversee Libra and its development. The partnership includes venture capital firms, nonprofit organizations, crypto firms, and massive corporate financial, telecommunications, and technology service providers, including Coinbase, Mastercard, Visa, eBay, PayPal, Stripe, Spotify, Uber, Lyft, and Vodafone. Those organizations will also contribute to what is known as the Libra Reserve, the asset pool that will ensure every unit of Libra currency is backed by something of intrinsic value rather than by simple scarcity, as Bitcoin is.
The company has sky-high hopes that Libra could become the foundation for a new financial system not controlled by today’s power brokers on Wall Street or central banks.
“It feels like it is time for a better system,” David Marcus, head of Facebook’s blockchain technology research, said in an interview. “This is something that could be a profound change for the entire world.”
