Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week PayPal officially pulls out of the Libra Association It’s official: PayPal has left the Libra Association — the governing body of Facebook’s embattled digital currency. Although the payment processing giant says it remains supportive of the stablecoin’s aspirations, the company was absent from a meeting of 28 Libra backers on Thursday. Others may follow suit. …

Brian Armstrong, CEO and co-founder of major crypto exchange Coinbase, tweeted on Oct. 5 that he expects the United States government to react to China’s stablecoin project by reconsidering its “ridiculous” response to Facebook’s Libra digital currency. The U.S. government wants to be left behind In his tweet, Armstrong said he believes that “the way the U.S. government reacted it's like they almost want to be left behind.” He also voiced overall concerns over the United States possibly becoming obsolete due to innovation obstruction in a subsequent tweet: “The way for countries to remain relevant over the long term and …

Randall Quarles, chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), has claimed that the potential scale of stablecoins such as Facebook’s Libra could present future “regulatory challenges.” Quarles voiced his opinion during a presentation at the European Banking Summit in Belgium on Oct. 3. FSB leads G20’s work on stablecoins going forward Quarles specifically highlighted yet unreleased Libra stablecoin as the catalyst that has significantly increased public interest in the subject. This could potentially bring a new scale and scope to the space, which the financial regulatory community must carefully consider. Quarles stated: “Although there is a small risk to financial …

The United States House Financial Services Committee has reportedly invited Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to testify on Oct. 29 about the company’s plans for its Libra stablecoin. According to a report from The Information on Oct. 3, the invitation comes with a key condition: that CEO Mark Zuckerberg consent to appear before the committee before January 2020. Sandberg would follow David Marcus’s testimony The Committee, chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters, has recently announced its plans to prioritize scrutiny of Facebook’s proposal for Libra and corresponding digital wallet Calibra as part of its fall 2019 agenda. According to The Information’s sources, …

Disclaimer: This article previously stated that PayPal was possibly withdrawing from the Libra Association. It has since been updated to reflect its official withdrawal. Payment processor PayPal has officially left the Libra Association, the governing body of Facebook’s Libra digital currency. Libra “Pre-work” is not enough for PayPal As news agency Financial Times reported on Oct. 3, PayPal did not attend a meeting of 28 Libra backers on Thursday. Following the payment provider’s no-show, a spokesperson for the firm told Cointelegraph on Oct. 4 that it officially left the association, adding: “We remain supportive of Libra’s aspirations and look forward …

Facebook’s Libra digital currency developers have released a new roadmap outlining steps toward its mainnet launch. The update from the Libra Foundation published on Oct. 2 highlights various points of interest for both developers and those who operate the protocol’s nodes. Devs focus on mainnet preparations Currently running as a testnet, Libra aims to iron out technical challenges prior to a mainnet launch, yet without an official launch date. The roadmap reads: “Launching the Testnet has allowed the team to quickly improve Libra Core by making it easy to troubleshoot, diagnose, and resolve software edge cases. The Testnet demonstrates Libra …

Cryptocurrencies are based on decentralized technologies, but there is a big difference in terms of what they are, how they are used, and what it means for the projects — and now, governments — that are engaging in these technologies. With recent events such as the Libra announcement, the emergence of a proposed Chinese national digital currency, and other sovereign state crypto announcements, there is a very real possibility of a large segment of the population being led astray. Decentralization If you look at cryptocurrency, it is a digital currency or asset that operates on the back of a decentralized …

Mark Branson, head of Swiss financial supervisor FINMA, has said he is more concerned with the dark corners of cryptocurrency than he is with Facebook’s stablecoin Libra. Switzerland will not make Libra impossible On Oct. 1, Reuters reported that Branson is more wary of crypto projects that develop without official scrutiny — and said Libra “is being done transparently.” Branson added: “I am much more nervous about projects which develop in a dark corner in the financial system somewhere, spread themselves out through cyberspace and one day are too big to be stopped.” Branson explained that Libra will face the …

Executive Vice President-Designate of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager, has questioned the motives behind Facebook’s forthcoming Libra stablecoin. In an interview with the Financial Services Union of Denmark, a fragment of which was published on Oct. 1, Vestager addressed the possible impact from Libra’s launch — such as competition due to Facebook’s multimillion user base and distortion of competition in the payment services market. Vestager argued: "It's a pretty new thing that we are starting to question something that does not exist yet. But it is so far in the future that we cannot tell if this is going to …

Newly leaked audio from Q&A sessions between Facebook’s CEO and employees has revealed Facebook’s early strategy for Libra's launch. On Oct. 1, tech news site The Verge published audio and text from two internal meetings held at Facebook in July. Along with major topics such as Facebook’s potential breakup by regulators, Mark Zuckerberg devoted a significant part of the sessions to the company’s much-discussed cryptocurrency project Libra, which was officially unveiled in June. Consultative approach Zuckerberg underlined the consultative approach around Libra, stressing that both Facebook and the Libra Association want to do their best to solve a number of …

Facebook’s crypto project Libra will potentially create a “shadow banking” system, according to the banks at the Federal Advisory Council (FAC). U.S. banks fear Libra will reduce payment volumes After the United States Federal Reserve asked some of the nation’s largest banks about Libra, the banks expressed their negative stance towards the project, outlining the risks of potential decline in demand-deposit accounts and bank payment volumes, Bloomberg reports Sept. 30. Libra and similar stablecoin projects, where a digital coin is pegged to an underlying value consisting of one or more fiat currencies, also pose a possible challenge to the bank …

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Crypto carnage: Bloodbath for altcoins as Bitcoin crashes It’s been a week to forget in the crypto world. Bitcoin (BTC) prices crashed hard on Tuesday — rapidly dropping from $9,800 to $8,150 over the course of the day. The double-digit percentage losses saw the overall crypto market cap lose a whopping $20 billion in less …