Weiss Ratings Slam Facebook and Its Stable Coin Project Libra for Being Absent From DLT Discussions

By Prashant Jha

Facebook’s aspirational crypto project code-named Libra has been going on in full swing, with rumors of its testing in India already been confirmed from multiple sources. However, amid all the hype surrounding Facebook’s stable coin, Weiss Ratings, a popular cryptocurrency rating platform has come out to slam Facebook for its absence from the DLT discussions. The Weiss Ratings recently tweeted,

“#FB allegedly recruiting financial firms to develop its own #crypto, project codename Libra. Financial firms are being recruited yet, #Facebook is “noticeably absent” from discussions about using #DLT to enhance user privacy. What does that say about #FBCoin? #ThisIsNoCrypto”

Facebook’s privacy concerns are well-known around the world and the concerns became more grave after the Cambridge Analytica mishap came into the public domain. Thus, Weiss attack on Fb coin is understandable, given there haven’t been any serious efforts from the social media giants to contain the privacy concerns, which is the backbone of cryptocurrency space.

Facebook has been on a hiring spree where it has maintained secrecy over the progress of the crypto project, but the department concerned with the development of the stable coin has swelled from a couple of members to more than 50 in no time.

Weiss is not the Only One Concerned Over Facebook’s Privacy

The recent attack by Weiss might have come on the heels of Facebook’s absence from various decentralized world events and discussions, however, it was not the first one to show concern over FB coin. Earlier Andreas Antonopoulos, author of Mastering Bitcoin and a long-time crypto bull had earlier slammed Facebook for its crypto project saying that the social media would sell the transaction data to private companies.

He had said,

“They are centralized, censorable, bordered, controlled, [permissioned], and closed systems… that have the same characteristics of fiat, but are simply now digital. Guess what? We already have digital fiat. All banks operate primarily with digital fiat. About 92% of the money supply in the world is digital fiat, with no physical equivalent in cash.”

However, despite the continued attacks from various sections of the society, Facebook has ramped up its project work aggressively pushing their agenda on the market. Recently, Facebook also hired two former Coinbase employees.

Barclays had earlier predicted that the Facebook crypto project could be well worth of $19 billion, and Ross Sandler, an internet analyst with Barclays explained why,

“Based on our checks, the first version of Facebook Coin may be a single purpose coin for micro-payments and domestic p2p money transfer (in-country), very similar to the original credits from 2010 and Venmo today.”