About Libra & My Opinions
A personal perspective about Facebook’s Libra
Libra is a new global digital currency platform made in cryptocurrency and blockchain in the decentralized form; founded by Facebook. This was created in the aim that money should be available from anywhere in the world in real-time; including the developing countries which would benefit the most from this scheme. Libra’s motto is “No matter who you are, where you live or what you do, Libra is built to work for everyone because when everyone has access to services required, we all thrive.”
Libra cryptocurrency would be a truly global, stable and secure way to use money and giving people same financial opportunities around the globe economically. Libre cryptocurrency is about evolving and scaling the network of blockchain and policy-making for financial inclusion.
The idea from Facebook has come about because there are 1.7 billion people (31% of world population) in this world who do not have access to a bank account; since this is quite expensive. In fact, most of the developing world income would be gone in a flash as it takes about 7% to send money internationally. Generally, unbanked people pay on average $4 higher fees per month for cash access. Therefore, having a global digital cryptocurrency, like Libra, can have a positive impact on the developing world by having a better economic situation in terms in finances but also in creating new jobs. Meaning this could reduce extreme poverty by at least 20% — 22% of the developing world.
Currently, the only available option in the cheapest form is to have cash, which has disadvantages such as difficult to move around internationally and quite easy target for stolen money. It is not only the developing world that suffers theft of cash, but developed world businesses in the US, Europe and Australasia.
To use Libra for your financial goals, it only requires having a smartphone and some data connectivity, which is accessible for anyone. In order for the Libre cryptocurrency mission to succeed, this must be stable by having reserves and not be volatile, which many other cryptocurrencies are currently.
However for the US dollars or other world currencies, cryptocurrencies such as Libra could displace central banks, conventional banking and national monies in the long term. Since this cryptocurrency is not currently out in the market yet until 2020; us as consumers do not know what the impact will be in the long term for these businesses. Therefore, no threats have been revealed. Though, I believe that governments and traditional banks will have to adapt to the digital age of currency as this is a more popular and easier solution to banking the traditional way. I will say that not everyone will be happy about this when Libra cryptocurrency comes out to the market, as this means less jobs in the banking sector and higher profit loss.
In my opinion, since Facebook is an unethical and untrustworthy organization, there will definitely be some backlash as regulators may not want them to control a digital global currency. The difference between volatile and stable cryptocurrency is that Libra would never be a proper public ledger. Though, I think the future for the digital money currency is good and has its advantages and disadvantages, like anything else. I believe that we can do better in terms of helping people in the developing world get more independent, by schemes such as this.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author above do not necessarily represent the views of the Ethereum Foundation.
