Facebook Could Issue Several Stablecoins Instead of Just One

Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency could be changed from one stablecoin to several national currency-pegged stablecoins, Reuters reported on 20 October.

According to the report the head of the Libra project and CEO of the Callibra wallet, David Marcus, spoke at a banking seminar where he said that the company was considering dropping its plan of a single stablecoin pegged to a basket of fiat currencies and government bonds, and instead create a number of fiat-based stablecoins. He said:

“Instead of having a synthetic unit … we could have a series of stablecoins, a dollar stablecoin, a euro stablecoin, a sterling pound stable coin, etc. We could definitely approach this with having a multitude of stablecoins that represent national currencies in a tokenized digital form. That is one of the options that should be considered.”

Marcus further said to Reuters that this move was not the preferred option the Libra Association wants to take, but that the project needs to be “agile”.

The association itself lost several key members in the past weeks, first PayPal, and later Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Stripe, Mercado Pago, and Booking Holdings, which left right before the Libra Association inaugural meeting.

Even though Marcus did not say why the company was considering such a big change, it could be because of lawmakers from the U.S. and E.U. who have said that the project could be a threat to financial stability and monetary policy.

Recently a report from the Financial Stability Board (FSB) raised concerns that global stablecoins themselves could pose such a risk, not only Facebook’s Libra.

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is scheduled to appear as a sole witness before the House Financial Services Committee on 23 October, in an attempt to defend the Libra project.