• Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga Facebook Libra
    There are worse things you can say about a group that wants in to the financial industry than they don't care about anti-money laundering rules. But not many (Photo: Mastercard)
    Alt coins,  Politics,  Regulation

    Mastercard’s chief tosses Facebook’s Libra under the bus

    The credit card firm’s CEO, Ajay Banga, said compliance concerns were the reason he pulled out of Facebook’s stablecoin project

    February 3, 2020 /

    Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga told the Financial Times on Monday that important members of the Libra Association wouldn’t give a firm commitment to follow local laws in all circumstances, including know your client (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) regulations.

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  • Vodafone says Africa is calling. Gonna focus on M-Pesa instead of Libra. (via iStock)
    Vodafone says Africa is calling. Gonna focus on M-Pesa instead of Libra. (via iStock)
    Cryptocurrencies,  Libra

    Vodafone quits Libra Association

    The British telecom giant has become the eighth big company to withdraw from Facebook’s troubled cryptocurrency project

    January 21, 2020 /

    Vodafone has withdrawn from the Libra Association, the independent governing council for Facebook’s global cryptocurrency project. The British telecom giant said that it wants to switch gears and put the resources it originally intended for Libra into its African mobile money transfer service M-Pesa. 

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  • CFTC strategic plan
    Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Heath Tarbert wants to regulate softly and carry a big stick (Photo: Harvard)
    Ethereum,  Politics

    Opinion | Congress must act now on cryptocurrency regulation

    The election hype will soon doom any hope of a clear legal framework being in place by 2020.

    December 2, 2019 /

    Members of Congress love to drag the CEOs of large companies into hearings to show off in front of their constituents. The best recent example is the grilling of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg over the company's Libra cryptocurrency project. Now, this over-the-top political production is threatening to spoil a good opportunity to provide the regulatory clarity so desperately needed by the cryptocurrency industry...

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  • Facebook's chief seems to be losing, for once. (Anthony Quintano via Wikimedia Commons)
    Facebook's chief seems to be losing, for once. (Anthony Quintano via Wikimedia Commons)
    Libra

    Despite being called ‘global threat’, Libra Association launches

    A signing ceremony by the cryptocurrency’s members was overshadowed by dropouts and a report calling stablecoins a threat to the global economy

    October 15, 2019 /

    Facebook’s wounded Libra Association formally voted itself into existence on October 14, electing a board and choosing officers. The ceremony was overshadowed by the loss of seven original members including Mastercard and Visa.

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