Visa, EBay, Stripe and Mastercard have all announced that they are dropping out of Facebook’s Libra Association and its associated stablecoin project. Four companies abandon ship On Oct. 11, Bloomberg reported that Ebay, Stripe and Mastercard had decided to drop out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project. Within minutes, Visa said it had also decided not to join the Libra Association, according to The Block. The news comes one week after payment processor PayPal announced its withdrawal from the Libra stablecoin project as regulators continue to scrutinize the project. The companies have expressed respect for Facebook’s vision and claim to see …

The founder of the OpenLibra project, Lucas Geiger, reportedly misrepresented some of the organizations involved in the project. OpenLibra founder apologized through Telegram On Oct. 11, Coindesk reported that at least four individuals and organizations denied the fact that they support the OpenLibra project. Others are minimizing their involvement in OpenLibra, which aims to become an alternative to Facebook's Libra. Ethereum developer Lane Rettig excitedly took to Twitter on Oct. 8 to share Geiger's announcement of OpenLibra at the Ethereum developer conference Devcon 5, in Osaka, Japan, adding: “Seeing #openlibra publicly announced for the first time is sending shivers down …

Finco Services of Delaware has initiated a lawsuit against Facebook in a New York court, Oct.10, over the swirly tilde logo Facebook uses for its Libra token. The plaintiff is also suing its former designer, who did the logo work for Facebook, for reusing the design. Looking for a logo Finco Services alleges trademark infringement, unfair competition, and “false designation of origin” against Facebook over its use of the swirly tilde logo. The company provides online banking services through a mobile app, doing business under the name Current. In 2016, it paid a company called Character SF to design a …

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Oct. 23 regarding the firm’s proposed Libra stablecoin project. On Oct. 9, Congresswoman Maxine Waters officially announced that Zuckerberg will attend a congressional hearing entitled “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors.” Libra and Calibra moratorium The announcement notes that Waters and other Democrats on the commitee sent a letter to Facebook in July, requesting an immediate moratorium on the implementation of proposed cryptocurrency Libra and digital wallet Calibra. The statement also mentions the draft bill “Keep Big …

The United Kingdom’s central bank has established provisions that Facebook’s yet-to-be-released Libra stablecoin must comply with in order to be issued in the country. The Bank of England presented its latest Financial Policy Summary and Record at a Financial Policy Committee (FPC) meeting held on Oct. 9. The document — which addresses the resilience of the U.K. financial system in general — discusses innovative developments in the payments sector, noting that Libra has the potential to become “a systemically important payment system.” Launch of new payment systems The FPC pointed out that it would require payment systems like Libra to …

Lucas Geiger, co-founder of blockchain infrastructure startup Wireline, has announced OpenLibra — a permissionless fork of Facebook’s planned stablecoin. Ethereum developer Lane Rettig tweeted on Oct. 8 that OpenLibra was announced by Geiger at the Ethereum developer conference Devcon 5, adding: “Seeing #openlibra publicly announced for the first time is sending shivers down my spine. I am so excited about this initiative to ‘lock the door open’ for libra tech.” A more trustworthy environment for Libra apps OpenLibra’s developers have already released the first version of a permissionless Libra-based virtual machine on GitHub — known as MoveMint — that will …

Simon Morris, the head of product at the Libra Association, has left the project within five months of joining, according to his LinkedIn profile accessed on Oct. 9. The Switzerland-registered Libra Association is a not-for-profit membership organization established to govern the network for Facebook’s planned stablecoin. A BitTorrent veteran and fleeting Libra contributor Morris’s LinkedIn page indicates that he left the association in August — roughly two months after the social media giant announced its Libra plans. Prior to his work on Libra, Morris was a BitTorrent veteran, working there for almost nine years across multiple roles until 2016, followed …

The European Union’s finance commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has pledged to propose new rules to regulate cryptocurrencies such as Facebook’s Libra. As Reuters reports, speaking before EU lawmakers on Oct. 8, Dombrovskis said: “Europe needs a common approach on crypto-assets such as Libra. I intend to propose new legislation on this.” Dombrovskis’s role Having served as Latvia’s prime minister and finance minister and as a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009, Dombrovskis now seeks reappointment as the executive vice president of the European Commission. If reappointed, he would be tasked with a brief labelled "An Economy that Works …

Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of blockchain payments network Ripple, thinks that Facebook will fail to launch its Libra digital currency before 2023. Garlinghouse bets on a three-year Libra delay Speaking in an interview with Fortune on Oct. 7, Brad Garlinghouse argued that regulatory pushback would continue to plague the project that was only announced in June, noting: “I would bet that Libra… let's say, by the end of 2022, I think Libra will not have launched.” Garlinghouse also noted the various problems that governments around the world have raised with Facebook over its digital currency plans. As Cointelegraph reported, it …

Ex-federal prosecutor and now Andreessen Horowitz partner Katie Haun has argued that the United States blocking Facebook’s Libra digital currency will have national security implications. Haun’s comments were reported in a CNBC profile published on Oct. 6. “Frankly a dangerous precedent” to shut Libra down Andreessen Horowitz is a founding member of the Libra Association, the Switzerland-headquartered nonprofit consortium established to govern the Libra token. Speaking of the planned cryptocurrency, Haun noted that the social media titan’s project was facing “the same criticisms” and misperceptions that the asset class faces more broadly. She noted: “They were just heightened and they …

A crypto derivatives exchange is launching physically delivered futures contracts that will be settled based on whether Facebook’s Libra launches in 2020. According to Bloomberg’s report on Oct. 7, the new offering is slated for launch by the Seychelles-registered CoinFlex exchange via an “initial futures opening” (IFO) on Oct. 24. The IFO concept: betting on tokens that don’t exist yet CoinFlex’s IFO will set the price of a futures contract at 30 cents — reflecting a roughly 30% likelihood that Libra will launch by December 2020. The exchange’s CEO Mark Lamb has told Bloomberg that the price had been set …

Germany’s finance minister Olaf Scholz sees uses for an electronic version of the euro but believes Facebook should stay away from money issuance. Scholz: Germany wants E-euros, not Libra Speaking to local financial news outlet WirtschaftsWoche on Oct. 3, Scholz revealed that he would be keen on seeing a so-called E-euro, adding: “A payment system like that would be good for Europe as a financial center and its integration into the world financial system.” By contrast, Scholz has stated that he is “very, very skeptical” of Facebook’s digital currency, Libra, mimicking its hostile reception in France previously. He continued: “A …