- Kevin McCarthy has accused Facebook of trying to control the markets with Libra
- The politician says he loves the decentralized and highly secure nature of bitcoin and blockchain technology
- McCarthy has called on the tech giant to address its “potential anti-competitive behavior”
Kevin McCarthy, a United States politician serving the House of Representatives under the Republican party, has praised the world’s flagship cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC) for its decentralized nature while condemning Facebook’s Libra coin. The House Minority leader says he fears Facebook might try to control the market with its cryptocurrency, reports CNBC on July 16, 2019.
Kevin McCarthy Loves Bitcoin
Per sources close to the matter, the U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy has joined the “anti-Libra” bandwagon, making it clear that facebook and the organizers of the project are only interested in controlling the financial ecosystem just like the social media world.
In an interview with CNBC, McCarthy stated categorically that despite the super volatile nature of bitcoin (BTC), the decentralized nature of the virtual currency, coupled with its immutable distributed ledger, distinguishes it from projects like Libra.
In his words:
“I like bitcoin and the underlying blockchain technology. When I’m on Facebook, I’m not the customer, I’m the product. Facebook is free because they sell users data to make money. Now they want to get into the [crypto] business, and they’re not bitcoin, in this Libra. They’re not decentralized.”
Libra Must Get Decentralized
As reported by Blockchain Reporter on June 18, 2019, Facebook released the Libra whitepaper and Calibra wallet.
In the Libra whitepaper, the tech giant made it clear that it plans to start off its crypto project with a permissioned distributed ledger and would switch to a public blockchain later on.
Unlike king Bitcoin and a vast array of projects where virtually anyone can partake in securing the network through mining or staking, Facebook announced earlier in June that potential Libra node operators must cough out the sum of $10 million to play a role in its network.
With the bar set so high, only established firms such as Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Uber, and some others were able to make it into the Facebook consortium.
“I want to see decentralization because Libra concerns me that they are going to control the market,” declared McCarthy in Libra hearing by the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday.
Interestingly, CNBC has revealed that Republican Senator, PatToomey has opined that Project Libra should be given a chance to prove that they are not just doing it for the money.
