Facebook announces Libra cryptocurrency with a massive list of partners
Facebook’s cryptocurrency, and the company’s long-rumored, vast ambitions in the crypto space, are real.
On Tuesday, the company announced Libra, a decentralized cryptocurrency that will allow users of Facebook and WhatsApp to easily send each other money and make online purchases.
The news, however, is far bigger than that, transcending Facebook itself in several aspects. Read what it all means in our Facebook Libra deep dive, here.
Libra isn’t just Facebook’s project. It’s backed by the Geneva, Switzerland-based Libra Association, a non-profit organization with a long list of founding members who will jointly make decisions over Libra. Besides Facebook, the list includes Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Stripe, eBay, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Coinbase, Xapo, Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Mercy Corps, and Women’s World Banking, among others.
Libra’s Founding Members at launch.
Image: Libra Association
These corporations and organizations, which will be joined by others in the future (the goal is for the member list to ultimately have 100 names), will jointly make decisions over the direction of Libra, and Facebook tells me it will not have special preference over other members.
Libra, the stablecoin
Libra itself is a stablecoin — a special type of cryptocurrency that remains fairly stable compared to the value of another fairly stable real-world asset, such as the U.S. dollar. Unlike most stablecoins today (USDC, TUSD and DAI are examples), the value of Libra will not be pegged to the value of a single fiat currency (like the U.S. dollar), but its value should never go up and down by 10% on a daily basis as it sometimes happens with cryptocoins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
SEE ALSO: Facebook’s new Libra cryptocurrency: What you need to know
Libra will be fiat-backed, meaning that there will be a $1 worth of bank de
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