Zuckerberg Breaks Silence on Libra

The co-founder and CEO of the social network Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, recently said in an interview that the team is very focused on launching its controversial, yet highly anticipated stablecoin, Libra.

Talking to Nikkei, the CEO said:

"A lot of people have had questions and concerns, and we're committed to making sure that we work through all of those before moving forward. Obviously we want to move forward at some point soon [and] not have this take many years to roll out. But right now I'm really focused on making sure that we do this well."

This interview comes after the Libra consortium, which includes the likes of Mastercard and Visa, had a hard time receiving the approval of regulators globally to launch the crypto asset.

What Zuckerberg went onto say was very interesting as he regarded the matter occurring in Europe over concern for the coin.

“All these concerns around libra are serious. So I want to say this with a lot of clarity: In these conditions, we cannot authorize the development of libra on European soil.”

The Libra co-creator, David Marcus responded to the claims against the stablecoin saying it the aim is not to design a new monetary system. But instead, the focus was to develop a secondary system on top of existing cryptocurrencies, it remains to be seen as to whether the stance of regulations could change though. 

“Libra is designed to be a better payment network and system running on top of existing currencies, and delivering meaningful value to consumers all around the world. Libra will be backed 1:1 by a basket of strong currencies. This means that for any unit of Libra to exist, there must be the equivalent value in its reserve. As such there's no new money creation, which will strictly remain the province of sovereign Nations.”

Zuckerberg continued to say in the interview:

"Part of the approach and how we've changed is that now when we do things that are going to be very sensitive for society, we want to have a period where we can go out and talk about them and consult with people and get feedback and work through the issues before rolling them out. And that's a very different approach than what we might have taken five years ago. But I think it's the right way for us to do this at the scale that we operate in.”