PayPal Skips a Libra Meeting; Ohio Suspends Bitcoin Payments – Digital Transactions

In a bad week for cryptocurrency, a news report emerged late Thursday that PayPal Holdings Inc. skipped a key meeting of backers of Facebook Inc.’s Libra initiative. And, in the state of Ohio, officials on Wednesday suspended a pioneering site that accepted business taxes via Bitcoin.

Twenty-seven of the 28 companies that have signed on as members of the Libra Association attended the Washington, D.C., meeting, with PayPal as the only no-show, The Financial Times reported. The conference came in the wake of weeks of harsh criticism of the cryptocurrency project from lawmakers, regulators, and central bankers both in the United States and in Europe, who have expressed concerns about how Libra will combat money laundering, protect consumer data, and other issues. The Washington gathering was intended at least in part to work out how to address the blowback, according to the paper.

A PayPal spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Besides PayPal, four other…