Mark Zuckerberg Requested To Testify Before US House Committee On Libra By January

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, is expected to testify before a US House committee by January. The main topic will be related to Libra, a digital currency announced by Facebook a few months ago. This is according to some reports released a few hours ago. 

Zuckerberg To Testify Before U.S. House Committee

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, is expected to testify before the House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee on October 29. Nevertheless, Mr. Zuckerberg must commit to appearing as well. 

Facebook announced the Libra digital asset back in June this year and since then, the project has been severely questioned by regulatory agencies all around the world. Nations and governments are worried about the effects the new digital currency could have over the economy. 

Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, mentioned that Facebook’s plans raise privacy, trading, national security and monetary policy concerns. 

Facebook has over 2 billion users that would have access to this new financial product which can also affect consumers, investors and the whole economy. 

The decision to announce the virtual currency over a year before its official launch was in order to solve all the regulatory issues that regulators could have. 

The new virtual currency is expected to be backed by a basket of currencies that include the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, the Singapore dollar, the British pound and the euro. 

There were also some concerns about Libra adding the Chinese Renminbi to the currencies backing its Libra virtual currency. 

In order to compete with Facebook’s Libra digital asset, China has also started working on a new digital asset that would work in a similar way as the one created by Facebook. 

At the moment, the Libra virtual currency seems to be tested in India and Mexico. At the same time, Facebook seems to be working with other countries as well to test how the virtual currency behaves. 

In recent tapes, Mark Zuckerberg explained that they are planning to expand their Libra project in the future. He mentioned that they have a bigger and more exotic project around the Libra initiative. 

In this conversation, the CEO of Facebook mentioned that they knew it was going to be difficult to launch the virtual currency. Now, regulators in the U.S. are waiting for him to testify before January.