Libra Says It Has 100 Members Waiting In The Wings

Bertrand Perez, the Libra Association’s chief operating officer and interim managing director, said he is optimistic that a total of 100 companies will join as members, CNBC reported on Tuesday (Oct. 15).

Despite the exodus of prominent firms, Perez said the companies seeking to join Libra include “banking and financial institutions.” There are currently no banks or payments companies among Libra’s 21 founding members.

Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe are among the many traditional payments firms who have dropped out of the Libra Association in recent days after committing to it.

“There’s only one Visa, one Mastercard, I will not tell you that we have the equivalent, but I will tell you that we have reputable companies that are also very active in the financial and banking space,” Perez said.

Although no specific companies were named, Perez said an announcement is forthcoming. He also noted that the early 2020 launch of Libra could be postponed.

“With such a big project and the vision that we’re having, launching a few quarters later or before makes no real change,” Perez told the news outlet.

Companies exiting the project “got concerned” over adhering to U.S. regulatory standards, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC. The Libra project has had to deal with fierce analysis from global lawmakers who fear the stablecoin could be a catalyst for financial instability.

Facebook’s embattled cryptocurrency Libra was officially formed in Geneva with its 21 remaining members, Libra announced in a press release on Monday (Oct. 14). The Libra Association also named its board of directors and formalized the consortium’s executive team following the meeting.

Members include Calibra, Coinbase, Xapo, Anchorage, Bison Trails, Creative Destruction Lab, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Ribbit Capital, Union Square Ventures, Breakthrough Initiatives, Illiad, Vodafone, Farfetch, Uber, Lyft, Kiva, Mercy Corps, Women’s World Banking, Spotify and PayU.

The board of directors will consist of five people, all with ties to Facebook: lead David Marcus; Katie Haun, a partner with Andreessen Horowitz; Wences Casares, CEO of Xapo; Patrick Ellis, general counsel at PayU; and Matthew Davie, chief strategy officer of Kiva.