Today, Libra project head David Marcus testified in front of the United States Senate Banking Committee on Facebook’s incipient “cryptocurrency.” The discussion was largely overshadowed by Facebook’s tarnished reputation for user privacy and the mistrust its business practices have engendered.
Facebook announced Libra a little less than a month ago, but the idea of it has already captivated lawmakers and regulators around the globe. From the day of its unveiling, officials have raised concern over consumer data integrity/privacy, anti-money laundering (AML), terrorism financing and the fact that Facebook has proposed a de facto central bank not unlike a corporatized Federal Reserve.
But the hearing was the first (but certainly not the last) chance government officials have had to grill a Facebook employee about these concerns to learn more about what exactly they’re dealing with here. Some launched into the usual banal inquiries regarding AML, but they also dove into more nuanced territory of Libra’s implications for antitrust laws and the U.S.’s role in their development (and the development of the wider crypto industry).
The final result is a cocktail of opinions on Libra (and Facebook), which spans from the viscerally disconcerted to the cautiously curious to the eagerly optimistic.
Libra Could Deliver “Material Benefits”
Senate Banking Committee chairman Senator Michael Crapo opened the hearing to say that its primary objectives were to address how Libra works, its level of access to consumer info, its commitments to user/data privacy, how Libra will be managed and how the interaction/association between Facebook and the Calibra wallet will be structured. Echoing Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s reservations when speaking on Libra in his semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress, Crapo raised typical concerns about money laundering, how Libra may relate
