Ex-Federal Prosecutor: US Blocking Libra Has National Security Implications

Ex-federal prosecutor and now Andreessen Horowitz partner Katie Haun has argued that the United States blocking Facebook's Libra digital currency will have national security implications.

Haun's comments were reported in a CNBC profile published on Oct. 6."Frankly a dangerous precedent" to shut Libra down.

Reessen Horowitz is a founding member of the Libra Association, the Switzerland-headquartered non-profit consortium established to govern the Libra token.

Haun underscored her perspective that there are national security implications if the United States falls behind in terms of cryptocurrency development, pointing to plans to launch competitors to Libra by states such as China and Russia.

In August, the People's Bank of China revealed that its digital currency was almost ready to launch - significantly sooner than Libra.

A top PBoC official has indicated that the currency's organizational structure is to some extent similar to that of Libra's and that Facebook's unveiled project had fed back into the currency's original design.

Recently, payment processor PayPal has officially left the Libra Association, the governing body of Facebook's Libra digital currency.

As Cointelegraph reported on Oct. 2, the impetus behind similar worries for Visa, Mastercard and Stripe was ensuring Libra did not harm their relationships with regulators.

Libra has created controversy with lawmakers worldwide since its inception, with a common narrative revolving around the digital currency taking power over money away from governments.

Libra developers have also outlined a roadmap for progress, revealing that nodes were already testing communication with one another.