Despite the high profile companies withdrawn their application from Facebook’s Libra Association, one of the largest eCommerce companies, Shopify recently announced its inclusion.
While eBay, Visa, Stripe, Vodafone and other major giants ditched Libra Association, Shopify took an exact opposite turn. Announced on Feb 21 via an official blog post, Shopify elaborates on the purpose of joining Libra Association. Per the blog post, Shopify is striving to make “eCommerce better in part of the world where money and banking could be far better”.
As a result, joining Libra Association is one step in solving the part of global problems, it said.
We’re excited to be part of the Libra Association and look forward to how the project may improve commerce everywhere, Shopify wrote in a blog post. As a member of the Libra Association, we will work collectively to build a payment network that makes money easier to access and supports merchants and consumers everywhere.
Libra is a stablecoin, proposed by the largest social media giant, Facebook. Interestingly, the Libra Association is a private consortium of major companies for the project Libra. However, a handful of big companies left the Association, realizing that the path towards regulatory clarity for Facebook to launch Libra is not a straight or easy one. Despite the condition remained the same, Shopify’s decision of joining Libra wasn’t well-received by the community. In fact, few Twitter users wondered and enquired about the reason behind joining. Responding to one such user, Shopify CEO, Tobi Lutke said the decision is based on future potential instead of heard movement.
Ever since Facebook announced Libra, it has received several criticisms. To give an instance, U.S. lawmakers back in October 2019 slammed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during six-hour-long Libra hearing. While Zuckerberg appeared to explain to lawmakers that the company’s foray into digital assets is a good idea, lawmakers criticized that, Libra could pose a threat to national sovereignty. From that time on, regulatory sides for Libra haven’t been improved and henceforth, Libra’s launch in early 2020 isn’t officially revealed yet.
Nevertheless, Zuckerberg in previous hearing assured regulators that the giant will not be “part of launching Libra payment system anywhere in the world until the US regulator approves. “