The knives are really coming out to kill Facebook’s over-hyped Libra crypto project. After being bashed by President Donald Trump and the U.S. Congress, four liberal activist groups penned an open letter urging all 27 Libra partners to dump the Facebook venture.
Quartet: Mark Zuckerberg Cannot Be Trusted
The foursome cited fears over the social media monopoly’s feckless leadership. The scathing letter was signed by the following progressive consumer-advocacy groups:
- Open Markets Institute, a think tank that opposes corporate monopolies
- Public Citizen, a left-wing consumer-rights organization
- Demand Progress Education Fund, an internet activist group
- Revolving Door Project, an anti-Trump Democratic consortium
In their fiery missive (see below), the quartet warned Libra partners to withdraw from the crypto initiative. Specifically, they say Facebook cannot be trusted and is trying to monopolize the budding digital money industry.
Activists: Facebook Wants to Control the Market
Rather than use Libra to democratize financial services (as it claims), the group says Facebook is trying to fool the public into sanctioning its shady crypto project for its own self-serving purposes.
“Facebook is eager to present itself as just one voice of many in the Libra Association. No one is fooled by this subterfuge. There’s a reason that Congressional committees are seeking answers from Facebook officials.”
The anti-Facebook quartet suggests that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is lying when he claims that he wants to launch Libra to help the 1.7 billion people without access to traditional banking services.
In reality, Open Markets, Public Citizen, Demand Progress Education Fund, and the Revolving Door Project say Facebook merely wants to promote its own market dominance.
“Achieving a laudable goal should not be cheapened with a project whose aims are in fact unclear and whose leadership structure is based on fear.”
Accordingly, the quartet urged all 27 Libra Association partners to withdraw from the project before they become accomplices in Zuckerberg’s sinister scheme.
“We understand that Facebook is a powerful company and that it has in part generated a climate of fear with its market dominance. But if you collectively withdraw from the project, it will signal that the just-beginning era of digital money will be based on fair rules and democratic deliberation and not intimidation by the powerful.”
The Libra project has been under fire from all sides ever since it was announced. Crypto-skeptical lawmakers worry that the Libra “cryptocurrency” will be used to facilitate crime such as money-laundering, terrorism financing, and drug trafficking.
Accordingly, some lawmakers — like Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman — have called for a blanket ban on bitcoin in the United States.
Binance CFO: I Don’t Trust Zuckerberg’s Intentions
Public fears over Mark Zuckerberg’s intentions are escalating by the day — both from within and outside the cryptocurrency market.
As CCN reported, Binance CFO Wei Zhou says Zuckerberg is a megalomaniac who’s trying to squeeze crypto companies out of the dominance that he wants to assert over the space.
Zhou — a former Harvard classmate of the Facebook chairman — says Zuckerberg doesn’t care about promoting the mainstream adoption of crypto or blockchain.
To the contrary, he wants to make his social media monopoly a closed, centralized crypto-ecosystem that he will assert total control over, Zhou says.
Binance CFO Rips Facebook’s ‘Closed Blockchain Ecosystem’ Under Megalomaniac Zuck https://t.co/ybbV4FBl8i
— CCN Markets (@CCNMarkets) April 26, 2019
Zhou: Facebook’s Crypto Ecosystem Will Be Closed
With more than 2 billion alleged users worldwide, Facebook could operate like an unregulated nation-state with its own domestic economy.
“I suspect it’s going to be a closed Facebook ecosystem,” Zhou said. “Their goal is to wall off other people from coming into their system. Their goal is not to open up their system to other people.”
Based on his past experiences with Zuckerberg, Zhou says Facebook’s foray into crypto will not be inclusive (which is ironic for a social network), and all its decisions will be centralized around one person: Mark Zuckerberg.
