Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters has put a halt to Facebook efforts towards the development of its crypto-currency named ‘Libra’. The company has set a target of next year for its release.
Waters requested the company to give an opportunity for the regulators and the Congress to know in-depth about the scale, impact and conformity of their project to the worldwide financial regulatory framework before proceeding ahead. Several Democrat senators echoed her sentiment since the public’s trust in the company has taken a beating over the past year due to several privacy issues.
The block-chain project of Facebook called ‘Libra’ was unraveled on Tuesday. The project will offer an open-source digital currency mode for online transfer of money to merchants or peers and the digital wallet soon to be introduced by Facebook will enable users to exchange and accumulate the currency.
The statement released by Waters talked about the total disregard shown by the company with regard to protection of user data and the huge sums paid as fine for neglecting privacy issues besides being sued by government for violation of advertising regulations. With the crypto-currency launch announcement the company is moving into a territory which has yet to have a distinct regulatory framework in place. It is for the regulators to take serious note about national security and privacy concerns and ascertain the risks associated with crypto-currencies. Taking note of the company’s problematic past, she requested the company to take a pause on their path to the development of the new currency mode. She called upon the executives of the company to give their testimony on these issues so that things are cleared before moving forward.
A spokesperson of Facebook expressed the company’s openness to respond to every question put forth to them by the lawmakers as they move ahead in this process.