17 Oct Inside Facebook’s Botched Attempt to Start a New Cryptocurrency
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David Marcus
gathered a team inside
Facebook Inc.
’s headquarters in May to toast a skunk works project a year in the making: a bitcoin-like payments system that the social-media giant figured would upend the global flow of money.
“We’re going to change the world,” Mr. Marcus, a Facebook executive and the project’s architect, told employees as they sipped Champagne, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Turns out, changing the world isn’t so easy.
Five months later, the libra project is on life support after high-profile backers dropped out of the network under pressure from lawmakers and regulators. President Trump, Federal Reserve Chairman
Jerome Powell
and
Rep. Maxine Waters,
the Democratic chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee—three people who agree on little—have all criticized it. European officials are trying to halt its launch.
With…
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