Whitepaper on GlobalCoin is supposed to be publish next week
Facebook Inc. has signed up more than a dozen companies including Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., of course PayPal Holdings Inc. :) and Uber Technologies Inc. to back a new cryptocurrency it plans to unveil next week and launch next year.
The financial and e-commerce companies, venture capitalists and telecommunications firms will invest around $10 million each in a consortium that will govern the digital coin, called Libra, according to people familiar with the matter, as Wall Street Journal reported here.
The money is supposed to be used to fund the creation of the coin, which will be pegged to a basket of government-issued currencies to "avoid the wild swings that have dogged other cryptocurrencies" - as commented by involved source. Unfortunately the news are still unofficial since a Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment.
It has been a decade since bitcoin was born, yet consumers rather use it for speculation and HODLing, not paying with it (or any other cryptoasset). Facebook is betting it can change that with a crypto-based payments system built around its giant social network and its billions of users. This is definitely possible however several issues needs to be solved, especially around the regulatory landscape across the world.
Probably the first question which comes to mind of crypto enthusiast (including me) is ...who will control it. We already have so many private blockchains where the full control belongs to one entity. I am afraid that we are killing the main idea of decentralised currency and decentralised financial system. However, Facebook won’t directly control the coin, nor will the individual members of the consortium—known as the Libra Association. Some of the members could serve as “nodes” along the system that verify transactions and maintain records of them, creating a brand-new payments network, according to people familiar with the setup.
Above mentioned companies aren't the only one involved. We know that fnancial-technology firm Stripe Inc., travel-reservation site Booking.com and Argentina-based e-commerce site MercadoLibre Inc. have signed on to the project. This is a clear indication of international ambitions.
Still, the lure of Facebook’s nearly 2.4 billion monthly active users was too strong for many companies to pass up. Card companies have long fretted that a technology giant could muscle into their business, creating a payment option that cuts out card networks. Participating in Libra allows them to closely monitor Facebook’s payment ambitions while sharing in the upside should the project gain traction with consumers. As a common proverb is saying - if you can't beat them - join them. And seems that we will have quite powerful team who can win and eliminate.. banks? :D
And now to the point - seems that we will not have to speculate for much linger since Facebook plans to release a white paper introducing the coin next week (yes, next week, mid June 2019 :)), according to people familiar with its plans, adopting a format popularised by bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.