Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency ‘has failed’ says Swiss finance minister

Switzerland’s finance minister says Facebook’s Bitcoin-style currency needs a lot of reworking if it’s going to get off the ground.

Ueli Maurer said central banks are ‘not going to accept the basket of currencies’ to which Libra would be pegged, claiming it has ‘failed in its current form’.

The cryptocurrency is due to launch next year but has faced months of severe criticism from authorities across the world.

Libra is meant to be managed by a Geneva-based independent association linking several companies and non-profit groups.

But since early October, PayPal, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard and other payment services have withdrawn from the project amid growing pressure from regulators.

Officials in the US and elsewhere are concerned about the potential for…