Despite Pressure From Lawmakers, Facebook Claims Its Cryptocurrency Benefits Society

If things went by Facebook’s plan, its new cryptocurrency Libra will come out in 2020, but the company is facing pushback from lawmakers as well as nonprofits. They have concerns over security and privacy, for which Facebook has long had a bad reputation.

On Wednesday, David Marcus, the blockchain boss at Facebook, tried to calm everybody down with a post that says the company won’t directly control the cryptocurrency. The tech giant hopes to have over 100 organizations joining the nonprofit for overseeing Libra.

Marcus stated that people can benefit from Libra without having to trust Facebook as it will not have special responsibilities over the Libra Network.

Besides, the social giant is working on a digital wallet, dubbed Calibra, for WhatsApp and Messenger users to be able to exchange money for Libra and select other digital wallets.

Marcus’ remarks surface when US lawmakers, as well as nonprofits, press the company to answer questions around the project and explain why they should trust that the company won’t use data obtained from its digital wallet. Five Democratic lawmakers, US PIRG and other nonprofits, as well as the Economic Policy Institute, on Tuesday, send two separate letters to the social giant, asking it to pause the plan of developing a new cryptocurrency.

Not only lawmakers, even some of the 27 partners who work with Facebook also have concerns over the company’s worrying track record regarding privacy and issues between Facebook and global regulators. The partners, including Spotify, eBay, Mastercard, Visa, and Ubers, signed nonbinding agreements with which they can back out in case they don’t like the project’s orientation, according to The New York Times.

On July 16, the Senate will hold a hearing where Facebook executives will have the opportunity to answer about Libra. Then on July 17, there may be another hearing held by the House Financial Services Committee. Marcus stated that he looks forward to both hearings as well as engaging with regulators, lawmakers, and banks.