AP/Facebook/Business Insider
A photograph showing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg alongside a rendering of how its Libra payment service could look in action.
- Facebook on Tuesday announced the launch of its forthcoming cryptocurrency, Libra, and subsidiary financial service, Calibra.
- The service isn't launching until 2020, and there are still a few unanswered questions.
- Facebook hasn't clarified how old you have to be to use Libra, whether it will integrate with Facebook's existing Messenger payments, and how it got the name "Libra."
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On Tuesday, Facebook announced the 2020 launch of a new cryptocurrency: Libra.
Facebook teamed up with a slew of multinational companies to launch the currency, which will by monitored by an independent non-profit called the Libra Association when it launches in 2020. Facebook also created a new subsidiary, an app called Calibra, that will let uses send and receive the currency.
Lawmakers have already expressed alarm over Libra: Bruno le Marie, France's finance minister, rejected the potential for Libra to turn into its own "sovereign currency." And late Tuesday, Democratic congresswoman and House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters called for Facebook to pause its plans until regulators can look into the new cryptocurrency.
With Libra still a year out from launch, there are plenty of major questions being raised about the new service. For instance, we don't know yet how Facebook plans to comply with each country's rules for governing financial transactions; we also don't know if Facebook and its other Libra partners will offer any kind of protections for consumers.
Apart from some of the larger financial questions about Libra, here are six other things we're still wondering about the new cryptocurrency: