Rep. Patrick McHenry, senior Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, wrote a letter Tuesday to committee Chair Maxine Waters, a Democrat, demanding a hearing on the Facebook cryptocurrency initiative.
Maxine's full statement is below. What is most surprising is that she is, don't shoot us, right.
Facebook has data on billions of people and has repeatedly shown a disregard for the protection and careful use of this data. It has also exposed Americans to malicious and fake accounts from bad actors, including Russian intelligence and transnational traffickers. Facebook has also been fined large sums and remains under a Federal Trade Commission consent order for deceiving consumers and failing to keep consumer data private, and has also been sued by the government for violating fair housing laws on its advertising platform.
“With the announcement that it plans to create a cryptocurrency, Facebook is continuing its unchecked expansion and extending its reach into the lives of its users. The cryptocurrency market currently lacks a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protections for investors, consumers, and the economy. Regulators should see this as a wake-up call to get serious about the privacy and national security concerns, cybersecurity risks, and trading risks that are posed by cryptocurrencies. Given the company’s troubled past, I am requesting that Facebook agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on developing a cryptocurrency until Congress and regulators have the opportunity to examine these issues and take action. Facebook executives should also come before the Committee to provide testimony on these issues.”
Libra hasn't started yet but it looks like the US government wanted to bring it down already. No less than a congressional hearing is being requested here and bring some light about this so called coin. US are really coming down hard in recent days on everything that is related to crypto. But this time, they wanted to shoot it down before it goes on a full blown and un-controllable situation.
Actually this is too convenient for Libra. If anything, i find it suspicious that this representative wants a hearing about it (at this point when it was just announced). This is "free" publicity to get the attention of the public, probably on Zuckerberg controlled social media, so they can play the "sympathy" card.
This coin is already looking bad from it white paper, who knows whats its code looks like. Only an elite of millionaires are allowed to run nodes, and its partially backed in fiat. Its a mess, the like only someone who knows nothing of crypto but wants its own could conceive.
Its technically garbage no matter who is behind it. Zuckerberg could have subcontracted someone elsewhere to develop it, to avoid the monopoly accusation, but to me he actually wants the attention...