According to a news source at the Telecompaper, the Central Bank of Kenya Governor joins forces with the critics to point out the currency’s potential risks to the community, if not implemented and regulated properly.
Besides Bitcoin, Facebook’s Libra is one such currency that has garnered massive-scale support as well as condemnation. It has largely divided the crypto space into two categories – the optimists and the naysayers.
While on one hand, the preparations for the Facebook’s Stablecoin launch for next year begin on a grand-scale, on the other, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) advises caution against the consequential risks associated with Libra prior to releasing an official statement on the government’s stance.
Last year, several Kenyan banks tended plans to integrate Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for reducing operational costs and optimizing profits. CBK Governor, Patrick Njoroge, has addressed on that front as well. He confirms that CBK neither has plans to adopt the blockchain technology nor regard any cryptocurrencies based on that technology as a legal tender.
In the latest on Libra, the head of Calibra, David Marcus, responded to the concerns raised by the Senate Banking Committee on Jul 16 and pledged to comply with all the regulatory standards insisted by the financial regulators in the US.
A little history on Facebook’s Libra
Facebook has been causing a frenzy on the social media front for building a highly contentious yet ingenious platform for peer-to-peer payments.
The social media behemoth has had its fair share of success with P2P payments service introduced in the US and several cities across Europe. The highly enterprising concept of facilitating money transfers through Facebook messenger app gathered much response until 2019 when the company ceased its operations in the US citing diminishing consumer interests.
Come 2019, the Zuckerberg-led organization came out with all guns blazing with whitepaper release for Libra – Facebook’s very own digital asset.
With backing from over 27 prestigious firms, no other currency has supposedly gathered this degree of attention and debates even before its launch.
