Facebook's potential global cryptocurrency project, Libra, has received positive news from Shopify. The multinational e-commerce giant Shopify announced today that it is joining the Libra partnership to create a secure and accessible payment network. Almost immediately after its announcement in mid-2019, Libra became a target for regulators worldwide. As it stalled, Facebook's cryptocurrency project quickly lost momentum.
Although it's supposed to launch later this year, the company behind Libra has been fairly quiet on the subject. However, Libra might be taking a break. Announced today, Ontario-based e-commerce giant Shopify will join the Libra Association. The Canadian company is looking for a way to " improve commerce in parts of the world where money and banking could be much better ."
[amazon box="B07STTWHPL"]Shopify joins Libra
Furthermore, the statement outlines the main goal of establishing a more powerful infrastructure for entrepreneurs around the world.
As a member of the Libra Association, we will work collectively to build a payment network that facilitates access to money and supports merchants and consumers everywhere.
Shopify's entry comes at a difficult time for Libra. The latter started with 23 initial partners, but some of the biggest names quickly abandoned the project. As Cryptopotato reported last year, the harsh backlash from politicians and global watchdogs pushed companies like Uber, MasterCard, Visa, and Spotify to back down. In January 2020, Vodafone joined that list of withdrawals.
The giant telecom company left Facebook’s cryptocurrency project to work on its mobile payments platform, M-Pesa. After all the obstacles in its way, Facebook officials also seemed somewhat skeptical about the project. Citing “government scrutiny” as the main reason, a quarterly report from the company warned that Libra could be delayed or even fail to launch.
