Libra, Facebook's proposed new digital currency, is not receiving a balanced response. "I don't think you should launch Libra at all," said US congresswoman Carolyn Maloney at a hearing in Washington in July. US President Donald Trump, leaders of the G7 nations, and the head of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, have all expressed concerns about Libra, too.
Now the UK's Information Commissioner's Office has joined the chorus of sceptics. Some bystanders assume that because Facebook has used terms like "blockchain" and "decentralised" in its statements about Libra, that it is a system like Bitcoin. In other words, that it would be a grassroots digital currency that anyone can buy into and which would be extremely difficult to shut down.
