Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is offering his take on Facebook’s Libra.
At a summit in Menlo Park, California hosted by The Information, Garlinghouse said he thinks Facebook was too brash in the big reveal of its Libra white paper.
“I think that the way they approached it demonstrated, frankly, [from] my point of view, arrogance in how they rolled it out.
I think Facebook did not appreciate the trust deficit they had.”
The regulatory backlash against Libra in the US and around the world has Garlinghouse concerned that governments may begin to take a harsher stance on crypto and blockchain technology in the world of payments.
“Now I worry, am I going to get caught in the crossfire?”
Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe, eBay and Mercado Pago all dropped their support for Libra this month.
Despite the setbacks, Facebook’s head of blockchain David Marcus tells Yahoo Finance the project is “absolutely not” in jeopardy.
“You really have to, as a member, have passion and energy and fortitude to go through this because it’s hard. And it’s going to continue being hard. If anything, it’s going to get harder before it gets easier…
We’re fleshing out all of the regulatory requirements and oversight required for this to operate but nothing has changed.”
Back in July, Garlinghouse highlighted the differences between Ripple and Libra on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Garlinghouse says Ripple’s approach is centered on helping banks move money across borders, while Facebook’s Libra Association has zero banks on board.
“There is a huge opportunity to change the way the world financial systems work that is very beneficial to consumers, businesses, etc.
But again, it’s not competing with the banks… David Marcus came out when he announced Libra and said, ‘This spells the end of Western Union.’ That was a huge call-to-action to the banks around the world that had been watching big tech players that they’re fearful are going to come into this space.”
