Libra Association Executive Says Bitcoin Not A Means of Payment, Libra Is

Dante Disparte, vice chairman of the Libra Association, has put forward his views on Bitcoin and how according to him the world’s largest cryptocurrency isn’t a means of payment.

Speaking at the at the Digital Money Forum earlier this week, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Disparte said: "Bitcoin as an asset class has proven that mathematical scarcity can support an incredibly exciting asset. It's not a means of payment. It just isn’t."

He further added that for economic mobility of a large scale, the most crucial aspect is payment access. The average time for Bitcoin transactions is currently anywhere between 10 minutes to 1 hour. While this might look excellent for cross-border payments, using Bitcoin for terminal payments can be tricky.

Disparte said that this is where Facebook’s Libra can be useful. While announcing its Libra Project in June 2019, Facebook said that it plans to revolutionize the global payments industry facilitating instant payments anywhere across the globe using its native Libra cryptocurrency.

Although it is a pet project of Facebook, the social media giant won’t be the sole decision-maker when it comes to handling people’s finances. The Libra Association is a group of global organizations having stake with no single entity having absolute control over the Libra cryptocurrency.

However, Disparte received a quick backlash for his comments on Bitcoin and trying to project Libra as the saviour. Akin Sawyerr, a strategy lead on the Decred project, said: "I'm not convinced that a council of self-interested companies can do money better than a decentralized system. The only way to really get there is to empower the individuals to have some base-level sovereignty.”

Sawyerr was pointing to Bitcoin’s ability of having an inaccessible control over their money without any regulatory intervention. Speaking on the Libra system, he expressed more doubts saying that it will be very censorship-resistant.

Well, Facebook has already faced enough flak from the U.S. and other global regulators over its ability to manage such a large project. It remains to be seen how Facebook manages to sail through these testing waters.