Facebook Libra: the inside story of how the company’s cryptocurrency dream died
“Over the past few months, the Financial Times spoke to some 30 people involved with Facebook’s Libra/Diem project, including executives, developers, lobbyists and the regulators and politicians who ultimately killed it. (Many of them spoke on condition of anonymity because Facebook requires employees and partners to sign non-disclosure agreements.) What emerges is a picture of Silicon Valley executives who thought they could charge into finance and make billions, if only they could surmount technical and regulatory barriers. What they failed to realize was that the very fact Facebook had conceived the idea, doomed it. As one government official involved in the process puts it: “Diem spent years trying to reverse engineer their project to fix all of its faults. But they could never fix being linked to Facebook. It was their original sin.” [Read more]
Madagascar central bank staffing up for CBDC exploration
Banky Foiben’I Madagasikara has posted two staff positions to work on their e-ariary central bank digital currency (CBDC) project. In August 2021 they had posted a request for proposal for technology platform providers that closed in September. It is not publicly known which firm was chosen. Now they’re looking for a manager and technical expert to lead the project going forward. The final day for submitting applications is September 3, 2022.
