Will Facebook’s Libra tip the cryptocurrency scales? | DV Plus

Mark Zuckerberg

In January 2018, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg used his blog to ponder the concept of cryptocurrency and its socioeconomic implications.

“There are important counter-trends to this — like encryption and cryptocurrency — that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands,” he wrote. “But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I’m interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies and how best to use them in our services.”

Last month, Zuckerberg’s pondering became a reality when Facebook formally announced Libra, which it dubbed a “new decentralized blockchain, a low-volatility cryptocurrency, and a smart contract platform that together aim to create a new opportunity for responsible financial services innovation.”

Almost immediately, the news of Libra’s creation generated a firestorm of angry comment out of Washington, D.C., led…