Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes terms the new Libra cryptocurrency as 'frightening'

Not long ago, Facebook made an announcement that it will be entering into the cryptocurrency market with a **new coin called Libra** and a wallet for the coin called Calibra. Obviously with the company’s chequered track record, Libra is going to be a hard sell for the company and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes concurs with it. [caption id=“attachment_6610201” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook. Reuters[/caption] In a series of tweets, Hughes has mentioned that Libra has a hard and long path being successful. He has in fact termed this new cryptocurrency as “frightening”.

“At the start of the week, I thought the problem would be that it would reinforce Facebook’s corporate power. Now, a few days out, I think the problem is different and bigger: a new layer of monetary control between central banks and individuals, mediated by corporations,” tweeted Hughes.

This is not the first time Hughes has raised concerns over Libra. In an opinion piece in The Financial Times, Hughes wrote “Libra would hand over much of the control of monetary policy from central banks to these private companies, which also include Visa, Uber, and Vodafone. If global regulators don’t act now, it could very soon be too late”.

1. #Libra has a long way to go before being successful, but in theory, it's brilliant and frightening. At the start of the week, I thought the problem would be that it would reinforce Facebook's corporate power.

— Chris Hughes (@chrishughes) June 21, 2019

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Earlier, in an interview Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg **mentioned that regulators** have concerns about Facebook’s new cryptocurrency. Sandberg also mentioned that the Libra Association, which will handle the coin, will be based out of Geneva and it will comprise of 27 companies including the likes of Visa, Mastercard, Uber, Spotify and more.

Hughes has also voiced his concerns about how big Facebook has become back in May when he wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times that it is “ **time to break up Facebook** ” and that Mark Zuckerberg has yielded “unchecked power” and influence “far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government”.

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