PayPal is first to back away from Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency

onetheycallEric

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Big quote: “PayPal has made the decision to forgo further participation in the Libra Association at this time and to continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to financial services for underserved populations,” said PayPal in a statement.

PayPal is the first company to officially retract its support for Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, as the company has made its exit from the Libra Association, the nonprofit organization of founding members that will govern the currency.

When Facebook announced its Libra cryptocurrency, it swiftly attracted the attention and scrutiny of lawmakers and regulators, citing concerns of privacy and anti-competitive behavior, just to name a few. Unsure what a form of currency from Facebook would look like, governing bodies set their sights on Libra and began putting it under the microscope.

The Libra Association was put together as a means to satisfy lawmakers' fears that Facebook would have universal control over the currency. However, the widespread criticism and negativity surrounding the cryptocurrency before it's even gotten off the ground has led to some founding members of the Libra Association reevaluating their involvement, with PayPal being the first to publicly bow out.

PayPal's public desertion of the Libra Association isn't a good sign for a project that's already facing an uphill battle. The move might be just enough to sway other high profile early backers who are on the fence, which according to recent reports, could be Visa and Mastercard.

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Really not sure why so many companies signed on to this in the first place...

They expected the objections to dry up as soon as Facebook was willing to share ownership. The objections - public or legislative - did not dry up.

Ultimately, the US govt requires you pay your taxes in USD - and every other market requires their taxes paid in whatever the official currency of the market is. This makes libra a currency without a market - literally. Bitcoin and other cryptos get away with it because they're decentralized - and the guy who made bitcoin was smart enough to never cop to it (see: the few times the 'creator' has been arrested because they claimed or someone thought they made Bitcoin). Libra, by its very core concept, was going to be centralized - albeit, a very large center - and it would be competing with the USD, Euro, GBP, Yen, and Yuan. It was planning on making itself a direct competitor to the five most powerful currencies - it was never going to easy or pretty.

Cryptos are the future. Eventually governments will adopt them as part of their official monetary schemes, and when that happens, just you watch, all the decentralized cryptos will get banned (as impossible as it would be to actually ban them) or reclassified as speculative investments (upon which you need to pay taxes, in whatever crypto your government or market uses).
 
The way I've always seen Cryptomoney is simple: it mostly serves illegality and organized criminals.
 
The way I've always seen Cryptomoney is simple: it mostly serves illegality and organized criminals.

You're right. And those criminals are mostly working on the Wall Street or in tax oases, dressed in nice suits, never fired a gun in their life. Also known as "investment banksters".
 
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