Facebook tries to ease concerns over cryptocurrency

David Marcus, the head of Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra, in a blog post on Wednesday vowed to work closely with regulators, lawmakers and banks as the company seeks to unveil its controversial digital currency.

Marcus, who is set to testify before the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees over the next few weeks, wrote that he hopes to “provide answers and add clarity” amid a storm of sharp criticism and raised eyebrows from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“We believe in and are committed to a collaborative process with regulators, central banks, and lawmakers to ensure that Libra helps with the kinds of issues that the existing financial system has been fighting, notably around money laundering, terrorism financing, and more,” Marcus wrote.

His blog post, which addresses some of the top questions Marcus has fielded since Facebook unveiled Libra two weeks ago, comes the day after top Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee called for a temporary pause on the project.

Lawmakers have raised concerns over Facebook, an embattled company with more than 2.3 billion users worldwide, launching its own currency. House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in a statement slammed Facebook’s repeated privacy breaches, alleged violation of consumer protection laws and a string of other controversies involving user data.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said, “Facebook is already too big and too powerful, and it has used that power to exploit users’ data without protecting their privacy.”

Facebook is already facing scrutiny on Capitol Hill over its market power and mishandling of user data.