U.S. Legislators Openly Ask Payment Enterprises to Quit Libra

Libra’s opposition is as active as it has ever been as two United States Senators openly requested Mastercard, Stripe and Visa to stop participating in Libra, Facebook’s cryptocurrency venture.

The two Libra opponents in the spotlight are Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

On Tuesday they sent three different letters to Mastercard CEO and President Ajaypal Singh Banga, Visa CEO Alfred F. Kelly Jr. and Stripe CEO Patrick Collinson in regards to their companies’ cooperation in the development of Libra.

These three firms are in a group of 27 partners who support the crypto project.

What is a concern to the public is PayPal just abandoned the Libra Association earlier this month. The company dropped out of the project just weeks ahead of the signing of a formal charter on October 14.

Brown and Scharz defend their thesis by writing that Facebook failed to convincingly answer regulatory concerns over threats like money laundering, terrorism, monetary policy and economic destabilization.

The senators’ letters also include past allegations against the social media giant, such as an article from the New York Times which revealed criminal exploitation of Facebook’s messenger app.

As the letter describes:

“It is chilling to think what could happen if Facebook combines encrypted messaging with embedded anonymous global payments via Libra.”

Schatz and Brown’s request has a very serious tone with parts that sound a bit like a threat. In such a passage they explain that companies like Mastercard, Visa and Stripe would experience increased regulatory pressure as a result of their Libra membership.

As quoted from the letter:

“If you take this on, you can expect a high level of scrutiny from regulators not only on Libra-related payment activities, but on all payment activities.”