Facebook Libra Association Is Crumbling As Key Players Exit

In the latest Libra coin news, we can see that Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Stripe and Mercado Pago have all withdrawn from the Facebook Libra Association, leaving it crumbling and leaving the founders in shock.

The major blow to Facebook’s plans for a new global and widely distributed cryptocurrency initially came from PayPal but mainly the SEC which reviewed Libra and started the negative scrutiny around it.

The withdrawals were initially reported by the Financial Times and Bloomberg, as well as other outlets such as The Verge. A Visa spokesperson talked to the latter and said:

“Visa has decided not to join the Libra Association at this time. We will continue to evaluate and our ultimate decision will be determined by a number of factors, including the Association’s ability to fully satisfy all requisite regulatory expectations.”

Silly or not, the exits from the Facebook Libra Associations leave the upcoming stablecoin with no major US payment processor which is a serious issue for the fledgling project. This also tops up the news that PayPal officially withdrew from Libra a week ago.

The first official meeting of the Libra Council is in just two days from now – scheduled for October 14th in Geneva. On this meeting, it is expected for Libra to review all the members involved and ditch the recent departures, focusing on the bright side of the upcoming project.

“We highly respect the vision of the Facebook Libra Association,” eBay said in a statement when withdrawing from the Association. “However, eBay has made the decision to not move forward as a founding member. At this time, we are focused on rolling out eBay’s managed payments experience for our customers.”

Stripe also gave a similar explanation for its withdrawal from Libra, stating that while they are “supportive of projects that aim to make online commerce more accessible for people,” the company will “remain open to working with Libra at a later stage.”

All of these diplomatic answers made Libra also get out in the open. The policy chief at the company named Dante Disparte thanked the companies for their ongoing support and said:

“We are focused on moving forward and continuing to build a strong association of some of the world’s leading enterprises, social impact organizations and other stakeholders. We look forward to the inaugural Libra Association Council meeting in just 3 days and announcing the initial members of the Libra Association.”

Facebook Libra is expected to launch in 2020.