Vodafone Backs Out Of Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency

Telecommunications giant Vodafone became the latest in a string of companies to ditch Facebook’s cryptocurrency project, Libra.
A Vodafone spokesperson said in a statement that the company was leaving the project in order to focus its resources on M-Pesa, a mobile money platform with a presence across a number of African countries.
“We have said from the outset that Vodafone’s desire is to make a genuine contribution to extending financial inclusion,” the Vodafone spokesperson explained. “We remain fully committed to that goal. At the moment, we believe we can most effectively bring affordable financial services to the world’s poor by focusing on M-Pesa.”
Vodafone joins payments giants Mastercard and Visa that withdrew from Libra last October following heavy scrutiny of Facebook’s embattled digital currency from American regulators and politicians.
The bulk of the criticism centers on concerns over Libra’s regulatory uncertainty and the apparent risks it poses to the…