Vodafone joins a slew of companies dropping support for Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency

In June of last year, Facebook announced project Libra, a cryptocurrency built on top of Libra Blockchain. This project would allow users to quickly send money to one another for little or no transfer fee, therefore undercutting major central banks.

 

Vodafone was one of a group of 28 initial supporters of the project. However, as increased regulatory scrutiny has fallen over the digital currency’s development, members have been quickly abandoning the project. 

 

Yesterday, Vodafone reportedly became the latest to leave, joining other dropouts such as PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Stripe, and Mercado Pago.

 

“We have said from the outset that Vodafone’s desire is to make a genuine contribution to extending financial inclusion,” said a Vodafone spokesperson. "We remain fully committed to that goal and feel we can make the most contribution by focusing our efforts on [mobile payments platform] M-Pesa."

 

The reduction in support comes as no surprise. In December, Switzerland’s finance minister, Ueli Maurer said that the project has “failed” in its current form and would not be eligible for launch without significant changes. 

 

Nonetheless, Facebook is confident that Project Libra will eventually get the go-ahead, even if it comes some time after its initial launch goal, which was set for the first half of 2020. 

 

“We’d rather go slow and get it right, than assign a deadline to launch that keeps us from solving the problem of payments for those who need this solution most,” said Dante Disparte, head of policy and communications and vice chair at the Libra Association.