It seems Facebook is now the official “bad corporation” around the globe.
First it was revealed the firm had privacy issues with its users’ data, then it was revealed that those same privacy issues had not been sufficiently resolved. Still later it was revealed that Facebook had deceived regulators about solving those issues, when in fact they had not.
So, what did Facebook think would happen when they announced they would launch a cryptocurrency? Well obviously they thought their Libra “coin” would be warmly received. But in fact global regulators have ganged up on the firm with the intent of preventing Libra from being launched altogether.
Now in Facebook’s defense, global regulators (generally) hate ALL cryptocurrencies since every central bank is terrified of losing control of its own fiat currency. So Facebook is the perfect scapegoat to discourage a global cryptocurrency.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has called for the halt of the digital tokens, the French have echoed that sentiment and the Bank of England has joined the protest. Threatened with various tax initiatives, criminal investigations and all sorts of regulatory hurdles, the global policymakers have put not only Facebook on notice but also Amazon, Google and others to forget about launching any threats to sovereign currencies in the form of digital currencies.
However, note to all central bankers: It’s too late to put those pesky digital coins back into the proverbial bottle.
Even the standard negative yells of criminal activity, manipulation, hacking and a host of other evil intentions attributed to digital currencies are proving minuscule when compared to those same activities being transacted through traditional banks.
Cryptocurrencies increasingly are becoming mainstream and Bitcoin is now being used for daily transactions in many countries. China is close to launching its own digital currency (China is virtually a cashless society anyway), Russia is close to the doing the same, and other countries are mapping out plans to join in soon.
So, rather than just simply watching all this new digital currency spread globally, perhaps the central bankers and global regulators should come up with ways to participate instead of making Facebook the bad girl/boy of crypto.
As they say, keep up or get out of the way.