More details have emerged about Facebook’s cryptocurrency as the project becomes more public. It has been hard for Facebook to keep the project under wraps considering the nature of the negotiations necessary in order to have a smooth launch. Over the past few weeks, executives from Facebook have reportedly met with financial regulators and other players in the financial field with the intention of finding an approach angle for market entry and avoid regulatory bottlenecks when the project finally launches. Through such meetings, more information about the project, dubbed Libra has leaked to the public. One such piece of information as reported by TechCrunch recently is the date for the release of the Libra whitepaper.
Come June 18th, the public will be introduced formally to one of the most publicized, anticipated and secretive project in cryptocurrency. BBC has previously reported that the Facebook cryptocurrency would be named GlobalCoin but this information has been termed inaccurate by The Information which also revealed new information about the project this week. The above date has not been confirmed by Facebook, however, a source has confirmed that the date was shared with some investors of the project. Furthermore, the date was also revealed by the company’s Head of Financial Services & Payment Partnerships for Northern Europe Laura McCracken.
Speaking to Sebastian Kirsch from the German magazine WirtschaftsWoche, she divulged unintentionally that the whitepaper was going to be released on June 18th. Kirsch was reportedly pressing McCracken for details about the project when she informed him to wait until the said date for more details as that was when the whitepaper was going to be released. In her defense, she told Kirsch that she thought that the date was public knowledge, which was not the case.
Now that we know the date for the official launch of the project whitepaper, what else is known about the project? Well, The Information shared some more information about the team behind Libra. The project is headed by David Marcus, the former PayPal President and VP of Facebook Messenger. Other high ranking executives include Kevin Well, the former Instagram VP of product and Sunita Parasuraman, the company’s former corporate head of treasury operations among several other personally from Facebook’s ranks.
It also seems that Facebook might feature the name Libra predominantly if not outright the naming the cryptocurrency the same. According to TechCrunch, the name Libra could be a play on the wording LIBOR, which stands for London Inter-bank Offered Rate. LIBOR is mainly used to provide a benchmark for interbank lending interest rates. Facebook could possibly market the project as an equivalent of LIBOR except between people. According to Reuters, Facebook has even registered a Fintech company in Switzerland called Libra Networks.
