Back in June this year, Facebook launched Libra, its cryptocurrency platform and it had on board a lot of partners. However, these partners started leaving the Libra consortium one after the other, thus making the whole project looks like a failed one already.
However, Facebook has refused to give up on it. David Marcus, Facebook’s Head of Calibra told Yahoo Finance in an interview that their blockchain is “absolutely not†in jeopardy after some partners like Paypal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Mercado Pago and Booking decided to leave the project.
“You really have to, as a member, have passion and energy and fortitude to go through this because it’s hard,†he said to Yahoo Finance. “And it’s going to continue being hard. If anything, it’s going to get harder before it gets easier.â€
Marcus said he respected the companies decisions to leave the project. “But I also understand that they also have a responsibility to their shareholders and to their stakeholders and they were under a lot of pressure,†he was quoted as saying.
Facebook launched Libra Association back in June and partnered with 27 companies as the founding members. They still have big names in the association that includes ride sharing companies (Uber and Lyft), Spotify, Coinbase, PayU and the likes.
Marcus says that there is still a lot of efforts needed to be inputted in the future. Apparently the association is now formal and the next step is finding more diversity in its membership and reaching the goal of having around 100 members in the organization by 2020.
That last goal will be difficult due to the exit of key players and we will have to see how it will fair out in the long run.
