Not long ago, it was reported that Libra was looking to make a new home in Switzerland. Well, it appears now that even Switzerland is looking down on the project, claiming that it’s not as strong as it should be.
Libra and Switzerland Aren’t Friends Anymore
These words came from Ueli Maurer, the country’s finance minster and outgoing president. He considers Libra something of a failure in its present state and doesn’t believe it can change the monetary system as it is. He also said that it needs a lot of “reworking” if it’s going to go anywhere.
In an interview with CNBC, he explains:
I don’t think [Libra has a chance in its current form] because central banks will not accept the basket of currencies underpinning it. The project, in this form, has thus failed.
He is referring to Libra’s status as a stable currency. It presently has several forms of fiat backing it up, including the euro and the Singapore dollar. This, he says, is likely to get in the way considering most regulators are unsure of stable coins and how they should be governed.
Libra has failed to make any serious mark on the financial space. It also hasn’t garnered enough fans over the past six months to attain any sort of momentum. The currency has faced several trust issues with users since it first emerged on the scene in June of 2019, likely because the project is being introduced through Facebook, a social media company that’s been wrought with scandal for some time.
Among the largest scandals to come to mind is arguably Cambridge Analytica, which consumers were introduced to in early 2018. Facebook had allegedly been selling users’ private data to third parties for several years without their knowledge or consent.
This data was being sold for advertising purposes, and Facebook was later accused of abusing privacy privileges. Head honcho Mark Zuckerberg had to testify before a Senate committee on live television, which ultimately brought trust in Facebook down to record lows.
The idea that this same company would somehow get its fingers on people’s financial data was shocking and worrisome to most. Thus, many regulators were slow to simply acknowledge Libra as a legitimate project and had several questions regarding how the company planned to keep people’s financial data secure and how it sought to prevent white-collar crimes like money laundering.
Too Much Scandal
To get his project through the ropes, Zuckerberg later announced that his company Facebook would be forced to withdraw from the Libra Association granted it did not garner full regulatory approval.
Sadly, this didn’t do much to convince regulators that Libra’s intentions were noble or pure of heart, and the project continues to face legal scrutiny to this day.