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A growing number of governments have responded to Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans including Japan, China, France, Russia and India. For example, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is paying “high attention” to Libra. According to one of the banks directors “Facebook’s plans to create its own cryptocurrency have forced China’s central bank into stepping up research into creating its own digital currency as Libra could potentially pose a challenge to Chinese cross-border payments, monetary policy and even financial sovereignty.”
The US have been actively taking initiatives in response to Facebook’s Libra coin announcement. The US Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing on Libra on the 16th of July, followed by a House Financial Services Committee hearing the next day. A drafted bill entitled “Keep Big Tech out of Finance” has appeared online ahead of Facebook’s hearing, Reuters reported about it firstly. The bill aims to prevent big tech companies from becoming financial institutions and launching digital assets. According to the draft, any tech company that has annual revenue of more than $25 billion is prohibited from issuing their own digital currency. Companies that violate the bill shall be subject to a daily fine of $1 million.
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