Japan to Look Into the Impact of Facebook’s Libra Ahead of G7

Japanese authorities are investigating the impact of Facebook’s Libra stablecoin, Cointelegraph Japan reported on July 12.

Per the report, Japanese authorities have set up a liaison conference tasked with investigating the impact of Facebook’s stablecoin on monetary policy and financial stability. The conference will reportedly consist of the Bank of Japan, the Ministry of Finance and the Financial Services Agency and has already started meeting this week.

The report claims that the objective of the newly formed group is to coordinate policies that would address the consequences of Libra’s implementation on regulation, tax, monetary policy, and payments settlement.

Unspecified officials reportedly noted that they hope that more tax and financial regulators will join the group, given the broad impact of Facebook’s project. Japan has taken the initiative on ahead of the upcoming meeting of the G7 finance ministers in Chantilly, France, on 17-18 July.

As Cointelegraph reported at the end of June, France created a G7 taskforce to examine how central banks can regulate cryptocurrencies such as Libra in anticipation of the same summit.

It is not only regulators who are worrying about Libra. Yesterday, news broke that Ethereum’s co-founder Mihai Alisie is concerned that Facebook is attempting to hoodwink regulators into approving a centralized “cryptocurrency.”