Do you remember Libra, the crypto project launched by Facebook in 2019? At the time, this project caused quite a stir. Trying to ride the crypto wave? Future dystopian currency? The criticism was rife and the timing didn't help.
Libra by Meta, a project (too) ahead of schedule
Mark Zuckerberg crystallized many criticisms at the time, and for many, Libra was seen as a way of taking control over a sovereign part of the economy.
Too few people focused on the project manager, David Marcuswho is nevertheless the central character of this story, since his appointment as head of Meta's blockchain projects in May 2018, until his appearance before the Senate on July 16, 2019 and his resignation from Meta in December 2021.
The real reasons for the failure of the Libra project, later renamed Diem, are similar to those found behind the problems of Ripple, Coinbase, or American crypto companies in general. In a word: politics.
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The enemy of my enemy. At the time, the Facebook project was seen as outside our camp. With hindsight, we realize that David Marcus was facing adversaries who were then ours for 4 years. Details that the latter has just revealed about X:
We spent months briefing key regulators in Washington and abroad. We then announced the project in June 2019 alongside 28 companies. Two weeks later, I was called to testify before the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, which was the start of 2 years of non-stop work and changes to appease the legislators and regulators.
⚖ How cryptocurrency and politics became linked.
Meta is not a small company. The Libra project has arrived ready before the regulators. Twenty-eight of the biggest companies on the planet were ready to support him. Jerome Powell, the president of the FED, was ready to give the green light until an exchange with Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary appointed by Joe Biden.
The latter would have told Jerome Powell that “ allowing this project to move forward is a “ political suicide »and that she “Wouldn't support him if he let him.” »
No more was needed. Some time later, the FED called the partner banks among the 28 companies. According to David Marcus:
The Fed's general counsel read a prepared statement to each of them, saying: “We can't stop you from going ahead and getting started, but we're not at comfortable with the fact that you are doing it.” And that's how it all ended.
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Four years late
Whether we like Meta or not, this project would have revolutionized the place of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the world. Instead, years were wasted. How many other projects have been nipped in the bud without us even knowing?
???? Find out how the SEC methodically destroyed crypto projects for 4 years.
To conclude his post, David Marcus shares his future blockchain project, on which he has been working since: Lightspark. He confides in passing that this episode of political pressure confirmed his suspicions:
If you're trying to build an open monetary network for the world – one that could move trillions of dollars a day, and which is expected to exist in 100 years – you have to build it on the most neutral, most neutral network and asset. decentralized and the most unassailable, which is, undoubtedly, bitcoin.
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Cryptocurrency expert, Marc-Antoine began his journey in Web 3 alongside David Prinçay (current president of Binance France) in the French Cryptocurrency Club. Since then, it is by writing articles in the best-known crypto media in France that he has spread the good word. If you've read an article about crypto, there's a good chance you've read one of his articles. NFT, Blockchain, Web 3, DeFi, there is not a sector that is foreign to it. And don't ask him what the next coin to buy is: it's a maximalist Bitcoin (yes, no one is perfect).
Marc-Antoine Caen Poletti
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