PayPal Withdraws Support For Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

PayPal is withdrawing from the Libra Association, the 28-member nonprofit organization formed in June 2019 to oversee the cryptocurrency's creation and eventual consumer rollout. The Verge reports: The company doesn't cite a specific reason, saying only in a statement to The Verge that it decided "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." "We remain supportive of Libra's aspirations and look forward to continued dialogue on ways to work together in the future," the statement continues. "Facebook has been a longstanding and valued strategic partner to PayPal, and we will continue to partner with and support Facebook in various capacities."

However, a report published by the Financial Times yesterday said PayPal had begun distancing itself from the project amid increasing regulatory scrutiny. The company reportedly signaled its intention to skip a meeting in Washington, DC scheduled for today, and the FT reports that at least one primary concern for PayPal has been the lack of attention Facebook executives have paid to Libra's considerable backlash. Another key concern is how the platform will combat money laundering activity.

Re:

[nospam007]

Take your meds, dude.

Re:

[btcwarrior]

Libra is a simple digital currency, controlled by a central authority.

Re: Cryptocurrency=Bitcoin / Everything else=Noise

[bill_mcgonigle]

There are several cryptocurrencies that fit that description (and more that don't). There are even contentious forks that happen when people decide to do something uniquely different and try to improve or even stay stagnant in light of devastating attacks (e.g. Eth Classic, p2pk Bitcoin, the 2013 Bitcoin hardfork, MoneroV7). Developer momentum and usage within an ecosystem will eventually determine the strong contenders. https://youtu.be/VoFb3mcxluY [youtu.be]

Libra is vulnerable because it's centralized but I'm pleased as punch that the regulators are scared as hell of Libra - they know nobody wants to use fiat if they are free to choose.

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[slashways]

Definitively Zero - The games of Alts, today, is mainly to do a 'premine'. The 'Premine' is a way to print free money for the leaders and friends. This money is required for the marketing operations, and to pay the expense fees demanded by the exchanges.When you do that ,you are not a competitor of Bitcoin. From an economic standpoint you are just printing easy money. BCASH (Bitcoin unlimited) was just an attempt by some peoples to fork Bitcoin in a way they can control it. This attempt failed. This failur

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[sleepghost]

+1

Re:

[sleepghost]

BCASH is already worthless - Five years from now it will be forgotten.

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[btcwarrior]

-1 'several cryptocurrencies..' the hype of 2017 ended. If this is what you have done you must be REKT by now.

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[Pinky's Brain]

There is one major angle of attack, the unpredictability of Trump. Most politicians might be too afraid to upset a trillion dollar applecart, but not Trump. If he gets 4 more years I'd say there are even odds he will go after bitcoin. If he bans currency exchange for bitcoin even just in the US it would crater bitcoin.

In theory he could use sanctions to force a ban of electronic banking being used to trade bitcoin worldwide even, but that probably wouldn't happen unless there is a major terrorist attack ass

Re:

[slashways]

Bitcoin was already banned in China. The price was only affected short-term. Nobody can't kill Bitcoin, even a state can't. Killing Bitcoin can succeed only if you have no incentives to use Bitcoin. You may look at the arguments given by Saifedean Ammous (Author of The Bitcoin Standard): If we go back to a Gold Standard, indeed this may affect negatively Bitcoin; But we must keep in mind that the Soviet Union even failed to ban 'jeans'. And 'jeans' was just a symbol.

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[Antique Geekmeister]

They're not long-term stable currencies. Quantum computing poses an enormous technological threat to almost all cryptocurrencies: I've not seen any that are immune to the shatttering of the blockchain through quantum computing. There are proposals to enhance the blockchain, itself, but this means replacing _all_ of the existing cryptocurrencies with new ones, which creates a new opportunity for arbitrage to suck money from previous investors.

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[sleepghost]

+1 - Fantastic text - who downgrades this?

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[btcwarrior]

'The only use case of the cryptocurrency concept is to remove any angle of attack. This requires..': Very Insightful +1

PayPal, the Great Democratizer

[demon driver]

Who wants to "democratize access to financial services for underserved population" – yes, of course.

Just like 'nonprofit' is a totally understandable attribute for an 'association' formed by Mastercard, PayU, Stripe, Visa Inc., Booking Holdings, eBay, Facebook, Lyft, MercadoPago, Spotify, Uber, Iliad SA, Vodafone, Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Initiatives, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, Union Square Ventures (et al.; in arbitrary order).

So it's just The Better against The Good, or maybe the other

um no....

[etash]

paypal probably realized that Libra will destroy their business model (much cheaper than the ~5% for every transaction going to paypal) and the huge instant user base.

good night paypal, it was nice knowing you.

Re:um no....

[Pinky's Brain]

I was always surprised they were part of it, it was clearly Facebook trying to find a cheap way to compete with paypal through the hands-off regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies.

Maybe they just wanted to be on the inside to better formulate plans to sabotage it and they no longer see the need?

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[kot-begemot-uk]

Not really. This is not about a business model, but about running their business in general. They are registered as a bank or something bank-like in a lot of jurisdictions. If the regulator says that any of the financial institutions in their remit cannot touch Libra with a bargepole, PayPal has to do that. The way things are going most regulators are on their way to issue such decisions and PayPal is simply pre-empting the inevitable.

Too janky for FB? Yikes.

[h33t l4x0r]

At least they didn't go with the original proposed currency name: Zuckerbux

i will be glad when

[FudRucker]

facebook fades away in to obsolescence like My_Space did, or yahoo chat & groups and other various stupid social crapola did in the past

I can't stand how FB runs FB

[Crashmarik]

I can't even imagine the insanity that would result from having them run everyone's money.

It would make the original Twilight Zone look subtle and understated it in its be careful what you wish for messages.

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[Agripa]

I can't even imagine the insanity that would result from having them run everyone's money.

It would make the original Twilight Zone look subtle and understated it in its be careful what you wish for messages.

It would be more like the most pessimistic and depressing of the Black Mirror or Masters of Horror episodes.

Quetta Results

[Quetta City]

Great words https://quettaresults.com/ [quettaresults.com]

paypal

[richyevents]

When paypal will comes in Pakistan anybody knows ? regarding richyevents [richyevents.com]

That's not fair

[xubee]

I think it's not good news, as Libra is new thing and they must be supported by current giant companies. Facebook itself have potential to promote it, but for sake of harmony it is needed to get support of community. Zubair Amin [zubairamin.com]

Reminds me of the Princess Bride

[Dixie_Flatline]

"Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I’ve got my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I’m swamped."

“Facebook, we'd love to help you fleece people and extend ever more control over their lives, but we have a lot of businesses to screw and people to anger ourselves. Best of luck, though.”