Libra or a stable currency that anchors a single currency, not a basket of currencies

As Facebook is increasingly questioned by its digital currency project Libra, the company said on Sunday that Libra could use cryptocurrencies based on national currencies such as the US dollar instead of the original basket of currencies.

David Marcus, head of the Facebook Libra project, said at a bank seminar recently that the team's main goal remains to create a more efficient payment system, but to find alternatives to the digital tokens used by the system.

He said:

“We can do this in a different way. Without a basket of currencies, we can also have a range of stable currencies, such as US dollar stable, euro stable, sterling stable, etc.”

He also stated:

“We can certainly solve this problem by creating a variety of stable coins in the form of tokens in digital form to represent the national currency. This is one of the options we should consider.”

Marcus emphasized that his words do not mean that the stable currency that anchors the legal currency is Libra's current preferred solution.

“We care about our mission and there are actually many ways to solve this problem,” Marcus told Reuters after a panel discussion and added that Libra needs to “show great flexibility.”

The Facebook-led project suffered severe setbacks earlier this month, with payment companies MasterCard and Visa both withdrawing from the Libra Association. Other major members of the exit include Stripe, eBay Inc, and Booking Holdings and PayPal.

Policymakers and regulators around the world are also concerned that creating a new basket of currencies could disrupt the global financial system, threaten users' privacy and facilitate money laundering.

The G20 Group agreed last Friday to establish strict regulations on cryptocurrencies and stated that it is not allowed to issue such stable currencies until global risks are resolved.

Marcus told Reuters that Facebook still plans to launch Libra in June 2020, but acknowledged that it may not be able to achieve this because of regulatory barriers.

"We will wait and see. That is still our goal." When asked if several major partners have recently left the project will delay Libra's launch, Marcus told Reuters:

“We have been emphasizing that we will not move forward unless we resolve all legal issues and receive appropriate regulatory approvals. Therefore, it is not entirely up to us whether we postpone the launch.”

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