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The U.S. Senate Banking Committee raised a wave skepticism over Facebookâs crypto project Libra during the first day of testimony.
The United Statesâ Senate Banking Committee raised a wave of skepticism over Facebookâs crypto project Libra during the first day of testimony on July 16.
The new hearing, called âExamining Facebook's Proposed Cryptocurrency and Its Impact on Consumers, Investors, and the American Financial Systemâ is scheduled for 10:00 AM ET, July 17.
As day two is coming in the next few hours, Cointelegraph posts a short recap of yesterday's hearings.
The first day saw Senate Banking Committee attacked David Marcus, head of Facebookâs crypto wallet Calibra, raising major concerns over Libra, including issues of trust, privacy, security and regulation.
The problem of trust has apparently prevailed during the hearing, as Senator Sherrod Brown considered Facebook âdangerousâ in the very opening remarks. The senator further expressed his scepticism, expressing doubts that people will trust Facebook with âtheir hard-earned money.â
Elizabeth Warren, Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate, outlined a lack of evidence that Facebook does not plan to link the platformâs user data to their money transactions and keep those records. She said:
âIâm not reassured by your statement that you canât see any reason right now why there wouldnât be any data sharing between these platforms.â
Senator Martha McSally escalated Warrenâs concerns, pointing out that Facebookâs âtrack record of failing and violating and deceiving in the pastâ is a sufficient cause for the committee to not trust the platform at all.
Additionally, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo raised a question why the Libra Corporation had chosen to register in Switzerland. In turn, Marcus assured that committee that the association would also register with the U.S. regulators. Specifically, Marcus emphasized Facebookâs intention to be compliant with the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in distributing its Libra stablecoin.
In the hearing, Marcus highlighted the role of Libra in the global leadership of the U.S. in an apparent attempt to mitigate the escalated concerns over the project. He warned that if the U.S. fails to act on the issue, the world will eventually see another crypto initiative that would be controlled by someone else, whose values are radically different.
Yesterday, U.S. house minority leader Kevin McCarthy expressed criticism against Libra, while praising major cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC), which has slipped to as low as $9,100 earlier today, seeing a loss of around 30% over the past 7 days at press time.
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