Facebook cryptocurrency Libra to launch as early as January but scaled back: FT

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Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency is readying to launch as early as January, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing three unidentified people involved in the project.

The Geneva-based Libra Association that will issue and govern Libra plans to launch a single digital coin backed by the dollar, the FT said, citing one of the people.

The move would represent an even bigger scaling-back of the project’s ambitions than that proposed in April in response to a regulatory and political backlash against the project.

Libra, unveiled by Facebook Inc last year, was relaunched in slimmed-down form after regulators and central banks across the world raised concerns it could upset financial stability and erode mainstream power over money.

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The Libra Association, of which Facebook is one of 27 members, is seeking the go-ahead from Switzerland’s markets watchdog to issue a series of stablecoins backed by individual traditional currencies, as well as a token based on the currency-pegged stablecoins.

Yet under the body’s new plan, other coins backed by traditional currencies, as well as the composite, would be introduced at a later date, the FT said.

The Libra Association did not immediately reply to a request for comment. FINMA, the Swiss regulator, did not elaborate beyond a statement in April confirming receipt of Libra’s application for a payments licence.

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Stablecoins are designed to avoid the volatility typical of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, making them in theory more suitable for payments and money transfers.