Digital Currency Revolution Series: Quick Run Through on Rift Between Facebook’s Libra and China

War of words continue as Marc Zuckerberg highlighted Chinese threat of cut-throat competition to the US.

In his prepared statements to the Committee of US Congress in the recent past, Zuckerberg stated that their crypto project would ensure that the U.S. stays a financial leader globally and adds his commentaries:

"China is moving quickly to launch a similar idea in the coming months. We can't sit here and assume that because America is today the leader that it will always get to be the leader if we don't innovate. Libra will be backed mostly by dollars and I believe it will extend America’s financial leadership as well as our democratic values and oversight around the world. If America doesn’t innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed.”

While in an effort to responding a question to Zuckerberg, that Representative Patrick McHenry asked about China, the cut-throat competition due to the rapid rise of its technology companies and geopolitical issues, Zuckerberg told, “today, 6 out of 10 of the top tech giants are from China and certainly don’t share our values.”

Whereas on the flip side, the Chinese authorities countered on Libra after the official introduces their central bank’s digital currency.

Yesterday, Huang Qifan, the vice chairman of the China International Economic Exchange Center, announcedthe name of the digital currency to be launched by the People’s Bank of China, DCEP. 

Followed by that, he also slammed the Facebook’s digital currency Libra. The Chinese official reckons that the Facebook’s crypto project is deemed as a failure as it lacks the support of real sovereign wealth.

He adds “I personally don’t believe Libra will succeed. Some companies attempt to challenge sovereign currency by issuing bitcoin or Libra. The decentralized blockchain-based currencies are not supported by sovereign credit and hard to become real wealth”.