The future of Facebook’s cryptocurrency, Libra, looks to be getting worse by the day. Less than a week after Visa, Mastercard, and eBay pulled out from the Libra Association, another member has decided to withdraw from the council at the 11th hour.
The member in question is Booking Holding, the online travel company responsible for Booking.com, Kayak, and Priceline. With the company’s departure, the Libra Association is now left with 21 members. Including Calibra, Uber, Spotify, and a few telco brands.
Booking Holding’s desertion comes just as the Libra Association held its first meeting among board members in Geneva, Switzerland. Dante Dispart, head of policy and communications for the Libra Association, said that the meeting was a correction and not a setback.
The Libra Association also mentioned that the departure of former members would be filled by other potential members, of which Facebook says numbers at 180 companies that already meet the cryptocurrency council’s membership requirements.
It’s no secret that Libra has been off to a rocky start. Upon its announcement, lawmakers in the US have openly opposed the cryptocurrency, saying that the coin poses a threat to security and data privacy. On the other end of the spectrum, the countries of France and Germany have outright banned it way ahead of its debut next year. Stating that “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”.
(Source: Reuters, The Verge, Engadget)
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