Bruised and battered, Libra trudges on
The Libra Association has had its inaugural meeting — though it was quite a bit different than originally envisioned.
On Monday, representatives from 21 companies and organizations met in Geneva to sign the Libra Association charter and elect its Board of Directors, thus formalizing the levers that will govern Libra, a cryptocurrency-based payment platform and a stablecoin of the same name, backed by a basket of real-world, fiat currencies.
The 21 initial members are as follows: Anchorage, Mercy Corps, Andreessen Horowitz, PayU, Bison Trails Co., Ribbit Capital, Breakthrough Initiatives, L.P., Spotify AB, Calibra, Inc., Thrive Capital, Coinbase, Inc., Uber Technologies, Inc., Creative Destruction Lab, Union Square Ventures, Farfetch UK Limited, Vodafone, Iliad, Women's World Banking, Kiva Microfunds, Xapo Holdings Limited, and Lyft, Inc.
The Board has five members: Matthew Davie from Kiva, Patrick Ellis from PayU, Katie Haun from Andreessen Horowitz, David Marcus from Calibra, and Wences Casares from Xapo.
Credit: Libra Association It's an impressive list of partners, but arguably the biggest names from Facebook's original Libra announcement in June are missing: Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Stripe, and eBay. Just days ago, these companies announced their withdrawal from the Libra Association, following weeks of rumors that they're unhappy with how Facebook is handling the massive regulatory scrutiny surrounding the project.
Facebook tried to alleviate the loss somewhat with its claims that "over 1,500 entities have indicated interest" in joining Libra, and that "approximately 180 entities have met the preliminary membership criteria" (ultimately, Libra Association plans to have a 100 members). But the companies that had considered joining and then backed away aren't only among the largest on the list; they're the ones closest to the world of traditional finance, and losing them was a major blow for the project.
Calibra CEO David Marcus thanked these companies for persevering for so long under "intense pressure," and hinted that he expects them to come back following regulatory clarity. That may be a tall order, given that some lawmakers went so far as calling for a ban of Libra or any similar project.
Kathryn Haun, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a newly elected member of the Libra Association's Board of Directors, tweeted that the company remains "committed to Libra's mission."
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"By attempting to block Libra before it’s even built, US policymakers risk ceding leadership over one of the most important emerging technologies," she wrote.
Fred Wilson, the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, explained his views in a blog post.
"It is fashionable to be negative about the Libra project right now. And it is equally fashionable to call it “Facebook’s crypto-currency project.” (...) But yesterday was the beginning of an independent effort, one that Facebook does not control, one where Facebook is one founding member among many, and one where Facebook has one board seat out of five."
While that may be so, it's still Facebook's enormous user base, which the company plans to leverage to make Libra popular, that makes regulators uneasy. Facebook's privacy-related mischiefs, for which the company was recently fined $5 billion, don't make things any easier for Libra.
The Libra Association now has the momentous task of not only attracting new members, but explaining to regulators and lawmakers around the world that its plan isn't a threat to sovereign currencies or a potential haven for shady business and terrorism.
On Oct. 23, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to appear in front of the U.S. Congress' Financial Services Committee, likely answering a lot of questions of Libra. Last time, when Facebook sent Calibra CEO David Marcus, it didn't go so well, and Zuckerberg's testimony will likely give us a better idea of whether Libra has a chance to ever really get off the ground.