Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum blockchain, criticized Facebook’s Libra coin by saying that it is basically a “centralized wolf in a decentralized sheep’s clothing.” His scathing view of Facebook’s stablecoin was published on Quartz, a tech news outlet.
The white paper on stable coin Libra, published earlier this month, received mixed response from crypto and blockchain technology experts, and concern from regulatory authorities.
Lubin begins to describe how the white paper precisely reflects the opinion of ordinary crypto enthusiasts. The document states that “sending money across the globe should be as simple and inexpensive as sending a message on your phone,” and “financial infrastructure should be globally inclusive and governed as a public good.”
Lubin cited the white paper’s assertion that “People will increasingly trust decentralized forms of governance,” and highlighted the need for a minimum amount of trust to be built by Libra, which is supposed to be backed by bank deposits and government bonds.
Furthermore, Lubin also stressed the need for the network to be responsibly run. Lubin also alleged that Libra, despite being projected as a decentralized network based crypto, carries features of centralized network.
Lubin said:
“Perhaps most importantly, it requires our trust that Libra will eventually transition to a more ‘permissionless,’ decentralized system, whereby anyone can validate the network, rather than the restrictive member evaluation criteria keeping control in the hands of the initial 28 firms.”
After explaining the drawbacks, Lubin did describe the project’s benefits. He said that Libra could have as much as 2 billion users in the next few years due to which cryptocurrency related services would undergo a vast improvement.
Lubin also listed out the benefits of Libra:
“In one fell swoop, talented UX designers could reduce the current friction of using cryptocurrency. Managing private keys, understanding ‘gas payments,’ and installing crypto browser plugins could be as simple as pressing ‘send’ in WhatsApp, another Facebook-owned entity.”
Lubin also alleges that Ethereum blockchain focused ConsenSys has already verified the code and the endeavor uses several ideas implemented successfully by Ethereum coders. Finally, Lubin anticipates Libra to be well executed technically.
Notably, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s governor Philip Lowe warned that there is little possibility of main stream adoption of Libra soon. In Europe, a G7 taskforce has been setup to study the manner in which cryptocurrencies can be regulated.
