Hiccups in the cryptocurrency market ahead, the Libra Association and its components have continued their relentless battle against regulators as the cryptocurrency project looks to get off the ground.
Amid ever-growing regulatory tension, David Marcus, the co-creator of Libra and the head of Facebook’s blockchain division, has asserted that blockchain-based payments ecosystems are needed in today’s world.
Blockchain Payment Protocols Only True “Game Changer”
For many living in the western world, the fiat money system in place is fine. Millions of people in places like the United Kingdom and the United States have access to financial services that are easy to use and are price and time-efficient. Transactions made with card are cheap, many are free to invest what capital they have in equities markets to grow their wealth, and money can be sent to global entities within minutes through a platform like PayPal.
But, it isn’t like this for everyone. Those without a proper address, personal identification details, and characteristics/backgrounds that may be deemed “suspicious” by institutions are shut out of the banking system. Bitcoin educator Andreas Antonopoulos has told a story of an Iranian individual who has no affiliation to the country, having moved to America at a young age, that is unable to get access to a bank account specifically due to his background.
To underserved individuals like the aforementioned, the fiat system isn’t working. This is why many believe Satoshi created Bitcoin; this is also why Facebook teamed up with some of the world’s largest corporations to build Libra, according to a recently-published blog post from David Marcus anyway.
In this extensive blog, Marcus asserted that Libra is integral in “changing the game for people”.
The former PayPal president firstly noted that using “existing [financial] rails” to build a fintech application “won’t reduce cost, open up the market to more innovation, nor lower the barrier of access to modern financial services as much as building a new infrastructure with a very stable, high quality global medium of exchange supporting it.”
Marcus then explained that Libra is an optimal solution to improve the financial system today, citing the fact that the blockchain will “enable wallets, merchants and services from all over the world to move value around at an incredibly low cost.”
This financial freedom, Marcus believes, will “greatly lower” the barrier of access to modern digital money and financial services, thus benefiting billions across the globe, who in turn will result in greater economic growth.
Libra Threatens Monetary Policy?
Regulators across the globe have seemingly paid no heed to Marcus’s points that Libra will only be a net benefit to the global economy. So little heed, in fact, that regulators and monetary authorities the world over have continued to bash the project as they believe it threatens fiat.
Earlier this month, the French finance ministry revealed to Reuters that both France and Germany — yes, the governments of those two E.U. behemoths — would be blocking Facebook’s Libra from being developed in their nations.
They asserted that “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations.” It is also believed that France and Germany for Libra to be banned throughout the entirety of the Eurozone.
What’s funny is that some believe that the E.U.’s aversion to Libra is a sign of their lack of faith in the euro. Cathie Wood, the chief executive of disruption-centric portfolio manager/markets research firm ARK Invest, wrote that these moves to stave off Libra’s launch may be out of fear of the “long-term viability of the euro”.