Amid mounting pressure from the European Union, PayPal became the first member to exit Facebook’s Libra association. Facebook announced that it will come up with its own Cryptocurrency by June 2020 and managed to attract quite a few members for its Libra Association. However, once the project started reaching regulators across the globe, the chances for Libra project’s success started fading away. In response to PayPal’s exit, the Geneva-based Libra Association stated that they were aware of the possible challenges lying ahead and they are prepared to take them on to “reconfigure” the financial system.

Troubles don’t just end there for Libra though as it was reported by Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks back that Visa and MasterCard too were reconsidering their involvement in Libra. For now, after the exit of PayPal, the number of members in Libra’s Association is down to 27, including a few big names like Spotify, Lyft, and Uber. Germany and France together took a stand to block Libra from operating within Europe rooting for a public Cryptocurrency instead. It was also reported that the launch of Libra could be delayed by Facebook considering the regulatory concerns over it. Libra Association, via a tweet, also indicated that they are looking forward to the upcoming council meeting of its members in the next 10 days to discuss the prospect of 1500 entities that have indicated an interest in participating in Libra Association.

Talking of major tech companies opting for their own Cryptocurrency, rumours of Apple starting their own Cryptocurrency was also high in the past few weeks. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook settled down all the rumours while giving an interview to French outlet, Les Echos, stating that he would prefer currencies to be centrally regulated by the government itself and not by any privately run organisation.