Facebook officially announced its cryptocurrency known as Libra last year. It lost a number of partners on the way, but the social media company says that its cryptocurrency will finally launch as early as January next year. Though the launch may be initially limited to only the US and a few countries in Latin America.
The Financial Times reports that the Libra Association plans to launch a single stablecoin that’s worth exactly US$1 (~RM4.07). For those unfamiliar with the term, stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that do not fluctuate in value against real-world money.
Overall, this launch is very small in scale, at least compared to what the Libra Association initially planned. Initially, the association wanted to release more stablecoins based on other currencies too, such as the Euro and the British Pound. These will instead come at a later date, rather than alongside the US Dollar equivalent.
The Libra wallet, Novi, will likely launch at the same time. As per the initial announcement, the Libra cryptocurrencies can be used via this wallet, or through Messenger and WhatsApp.
But after launch, it remains to be seen what the remaining partners will do with the Libra cryptocurrency. The Financial Times reports that the partners will take a wait and see approach before investing in use cases.
(Source: Financial Times via Engadget)
