Facebook’s Libra: Opinions For And Against
By Superorder.io on Altcoin Academy
Yeah, it’s impossible to avoid the discussion about upcoming cryptocurrency from Facebook. News about Libra caused a huge boom in the crypto industry. We aren’t going to repeat tech details of this project because there are dozens of reviews, guides, and rumors.
In a nutshell, Libra is a new payment ecosystem for quick international money transfers based on the Facebook community and partners. If you’re interested and want more info, check the original post by Mark Zuckerberg and the official website.
Instead, let’s focus on the attitude to Libra. How experts and ordinary traders reacted to this ambitious idea.
Positive Reactions
Most of the positive opinions come from regular traders and investors, especially from underbanked regions. People are happy because of such a global initiative that can cover 2.7 billion Facebook users all over the world. Users appreciate promised borderless payments with an instant exchange, a stable rate bounded to fiat currencies, and famous partners that should introduce blockchain to a wide audience.
But what the experts and large institutions say? Let’s find out:
- Eric Voorhees, ShapeShift: Libra will be a bridge to decentralized finance. It will serve the global market and help people to avoid costly fees.
- Jim Cramer, CNBC: Facebook doesn’t try to make money on this. It’s a genuine PR thing to save the reputation and help people.
- Justin Sun, TRON: Libra will launch a big cryptocurrency bull run. There’s a strong FOMO related to the news.
- Mark Carney, Bank of England: The idea is a potential system-grade project that can drive costs down and increase financial inclusion.
- Mark Mahaney, RBC Capital Markets: One of the most important initiatives in the history of Facebook. It may open new engagement and revenue streams.
- Sheila Warren, World Economic Forum: The company’s audience and fame will push Libra into everyday lives of billions of people.
- Spencer Chen, BRD: It’s a mainstream kickstart with the level of adoption that the blockchain world really needs.
Negative Reactions
Generally, the world’s financial community, as well as some famous crypto representatives, is more skeptical. Some entities and individuals are even frightened with Libra. They focus on harmful disruption of existing financial systems, including central banks of the developing states and entire monetary systems. Critics also warn that Facebook can gather enormous power in one hand via Libra.
The most prominent opinions are as follows:
- Andreas Antonopoulos, University of Nicosia: It’s not a real blockchain and it will not compete with open systems like Bitcoin.
- Bruno Le Maire, French Ministry for the Economy and Finance: Libra can’t become a sovereign currency. G7 must review this project.
- Changpeng Zhao, Binance: Facebook knows everything about you so it doesn’t need KYC at all. Libra has the “best” AML.
- Chris Hughes, ex-Facebook: The system will feature too much control over central banks. It will shift the power from governments to corporations.
- Daniel Evans: Gibraltar Stock Exchange: Libra doesn’t meet its own goals. Neither geography nor demography of Facebook users corresponds to the vision.
- Katharina Pistor, Columbia Law School: Facebook can’t protect its currency and has the potential to destroy the national economies that are “too big to fail”.
- Maxine Waters, US House Financial Services Committee: The company must stop developing Libra until Congress can research this initiative.
- Nouriel Roubini, New York University: It’s a monopoly scam that can’t be named as blockchain at all. The system will be centralized and permissioned.
The Future Of Libra
A lot of other reactions are moderate. Experts and investors appreciate the noble goal of providing financial services to unbanked and underbanked people. Still, they aren’t sure about the official state of Libra in the developing countries, not to mention the USA and EU which representatives have started investigations already.
The crypto community is divided now. Both institutions and individual businessmen have extremely different opinions that vary from “the best idea since Bitcoin” to “the emperor’s Zuckerberg final plan to rule the world”. For sure, regulators will try to limit Libra. For sure, Facebook will push it. And it will be interesting, undoubtedly.
Regardless of the coin’s future, we will keep an eye on it. Once Libra launches at exchanges, we will grant access to our users via Superorder API trading terminal. Stay tuned and enjoy crypto trading!
