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Facebook's crypto plans in jeopardy as Libra Association 'founding members' drop out

PayPal exited the Libra Association last week; on Friday eBay, Stripe, and MasterCard followed suit, in a major blow to Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans. Read More...

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Facebook’s plans for launching a cryptocurrency called Libra have faced backlash from lawmakers since the day Facebook announced its plans on June 18. Politicians from Rep.&nbsp;Maxine Waters&nbsp;(D-CA) to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) called for the company to curtail its crypto venture. Some elected officials have gone so far as to compare the potential damage of Libra&nbsp;to the subprime mortgage crisis and to 9/11.” data-reactid=”15″>Facebook’s plans for launching a cryptocurrency called Libra have faced backlash from lawmakers since the day Facebook announced its plans on June 18. Politicians from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) called for the company to curtail its crypto venture. Some elected officials have gone so far as to compare the potential damage of Libra to the subprime mortgage crisis and to 9/11.

When Facebook announced Libra, it also announced 28 “founding members” in the Libra Association, the governance group set to be headquartered in Geneva. Through more than three months of scrutiny, those partners hung around—until this month.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="PayPal exited the Libra Association last week; on Friday&nbsp;eBay, Stripe, and MasterCard followed suit, in a major blow to Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans.” data-reactid=”17″>PayPal exited the Libra Association last week; on Friday eBay, Stripe, and MasterCard followed suit, in a major blow to Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans.

The inciting event on Friday could have been a letter from Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii sent to Visa, MasterCard, and Stripe warning them about the risks of Libra.

PARIS, FRANCE – MAY 10: Founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg leaves after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron (not seen) at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France on May 10, 2019. (Photo by Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

To be sure, some in the industry are bullish on Libra even without its big-name backers. Kristin Smith of the Blockchain Association, a trade group that represents crypto and blockchain companies (but not Libra) told Yahoo Finance after PayPal dropped that the reaction to PayPal’s exit was “overrated” and that “at this point the adoption of crypto on a mass scale is inevitable.”

Yahoo Finance will track the dropouts here and continue to update this post when more companies exit.

Libra Association’s original graphic of its “founding member” companies. The strike-throughs, added by Yahoo Finance, indicate companies that have dropped.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.” data-reactid=”44″>Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.

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<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance” data-reactid=”53″>Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

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