Facebook’s ambitious cryptocurrency project called Libra is getting a lot of attention, especially from regulatory point of view. Leaprate recently reported that there are a lot of regulatory bodies now looking at Libra and wondering how this upcoming “global” currency will affect the entire world. One of this not so enamored with the project regulatory bodies is the U.S. government. Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee have gone so far as to call for a halt of the project.
Now, executives at the European Central Bank are calling for regulatory oversight on Libra. The information comes from a Bloomberg report on the 7th of July, 2019.
The executive board member of ECB, Mr. Benoit Coeure, commented that allowing for such a global and new asset class to exist without regulatory oversight is simply irresponsible, adding:
“We [financial regulators] have to move more quickly than we’ve been able to do up until now.
He went on to say that financial institutions are in fact too slow to adopt new digital assets and new technologies, saying:
All these projects are a rather useful wake-up call for regulators and public authorities, as they encourage us to raise a number of questions and might make us improve the way we do things.
It is rather interesting to see how Libra is affecting regulation regarding digital currencies and new technologies. While ICOs met their fair share of “criticism” when the global ICO market lost billions of dollars, regulation in different countries differs depending on how “pro” crypto or not a particular jurisdiction is. Now, with the global power that Facebook has, Libra is certainly “waking up” regulatory bodies.