California
The long-awaited Facebook-led digital currency Libra could launch in January 2021, according to a news report, which reported that the project will likely be even more limited than its already stripped-down plan.
According to the report, the Libra Association in April informed that it had planned to launch digital versions of several currencies, plus a ‘digital composite’ of all its coins.
Following more than a year of scrutiny from global financial regulators, the association would now launch a single coin backed one-for-one by dollar, the article reported.
Citing three people, the article stated that the other currencies and the composite would be rolled out at a later point.
The exact launch date is still not known and would depend on when the Libra Association receives regulatory approval by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or FINMA, to operate as a payments service.
A spokesperson at the FINMA declined to comment regarding Libra’s potential launch in January 2021. Meanwhile, Facebook and the Libra Association, which is managing the project, also declined to comment in this regard.
Initiated in June 2019, the Libra Association faced major regulatory scrutiny causing a number of member companies like PayPal and MasterCard to subsequently leave the project.
The basket of currencies backing LIbra was originally to include several fiat currencies including the U.S. dollar, euro, the Japanese yen, the British pound and the Singapore dollar.—Agencies
