Six high-profile supporters left the Libra association last week. However, many have chosen to stay. Now, Libra has a formal council, elected Board of directors and an executive team.
A formal charter stands signed by the partners and Facebook’s Libra in Geneva. And is being considered as a special milestone. The association partner list is impressive in spite of the recent bailouts. It includes Uber Technologies, PayU, Lyft, Coinbase, and Spotify Technology to name a few.
Source: Libra.org
As members, they are primarily required to work with the applicable regulators. In fact, they would provide Libra a much-required governance structure. Additionally, the association will have a decision-making framework in coherence with the regulations.
Apart from the above, the council needs to keep track of the member admission process. And maintain transparent admission and termination criteria. The association emphasizes there is a pressing need to do so. That’s because close to 1,500 entities are eager to join the ambitious Libra project. And almost 180 of them meet the existing membership criteria.
Given these points, it is noteworthy that members can exit the association for any reason. And the transfer of membership is possible under a certain set of guidelines. For all kinds of internal dispute resolution, the association will turn to Swiss arbitration.
Is Libra a lesson for the crypto innovators?
In 2018, Libra Association took off with a 27 partner long list. It seems this show of strength turned Libra into a honeycomb of regulatory troubles.
Jonathan Zeppettini, believes Facebook’s Libra teaches us a lesson. He is the International Ops Lead for Decred, an open-source and self-funded cryptocurrency with built-in governance.
Zeppettini says, “Challenging the government’s monopoly on the printing press requires you to not be at the government’s mercy. This is the reason Bitcoin was released by anonymous entities, and it is also one of the reasons that cryptocurrencies backed by goods (even fiat currency) are a bad idea from a regulatory perspective. Facebook is learning these lessons the hard way.”
So, what has Facebook done wrong? According to Zeppettini, it’s much easier to first do and then apologize. In other words, ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Facebook chose to ask for permission after announcing its partnerships. That’s the company’s mistake.
But right before going official, 6 major payment service providers bailed out. Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius Network, the crypto lending platform explains the fear.
Alex states, “Facebook and its partners underestimated the anger in the community over their practices and the level at which regulators would build walls to stop them. The idea that global centralized monopolies like Facebook would also control money and its use by 2.5B people is terrifying. In this case, historical performance is a guarantee of future performance”.
All things considered, there seems to be no end to the Libra debate. But in spite of all the roadblocks, the project is forging ahead to strengthen its lobby.
Previously, we covered Libra’s first-ever roadmap to its 2020 launch. Your views on Libra do matter, share them with us in the comments section.
