Facebooks Libra Association May Release First Stablecoin In January

The crypto coin from the Facebook-led Libra Association could launch in January. That is what sources from Ars Technica say. That would start with a single dollar-based stablecoin. Other stablecoins and the multi-currency coin were to follow later.

The date would depend on the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. The Libra Association apparently wants to operate from that country as a payment service. When the other stablecoins and the multi-currency coin follow, the sources cannot say. Interestingly, Libra was criticized early in its existence for the plan of only a single stablecoin; according to critics, there are risks related to money laundering and the financing of terrorism, among other things, in addition to competition concerns.

In April of this year, the Libra Association presented version 2.0 of its whitepaper. It showed significant deviations from the earlier vision: the single stablecoin based on the dollar was supplemented by several cryptocurrencies, each based on existing currencies such as the euro, and a multi-currency coin. The currencies are backed by bank reserves in the currency in question. Anyone who pays with multi-currency in the United Kingdom, for example, actually pays with LibraGBP.

Libra Association members include Spotify, Coinbase, Uber, Shopify and 23 more companies. Several companies, such as MasterCard, Booking.com, PayPal, eBay and Stripe, left the consortium in the months leading up to the presentation of the updated whitepaper. Facebook came up with the first concept in mid-2019.