The growing momentum of large companies previously announced as partners of the Libra digital currency project from Facebook is directly related to their fears about the proposed project not meeting regulatory requirements. Such a statement in an interview with CNBC made US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin.

Libra realized that they are not ready, that they are not up to par, says @ stevenmnuchin1 about Facebook's plan to start a cryptocurrency. "I assume some of the partners got concerned and dropped out until they meet those standards." Pic.twitter.com/hrtR41LaSJ

– Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) October 14, 2019

Over the past few days, the operator of the electronic payment system PayPal, payment systems Visa, Stripe and Mastercard, the Latin American trading platform MercadoLiber, and the e-commerce giant eBay have refused to participate in the project. In addition, on Monday, October 14, it became known about the withdrawal from the Libra Association of Booking Holdings Inc.

Thus, of the 28 companies that were named partners of the Libra Association in June this year, 21 participants remained in the Facebook project.

According to Stephen Mnuchin, he met with representatives of Libra several times, confirming during these meetings the intention of the US authorities to oppose the launch of the project.

“I think they [Libra] realized that they are not yet ready and meet the requirements. I believe that some of the partners were worried and left the project until they met these standards, ”the minister said.

Meanwhile, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency company, commenting on the statements of some politicians who had previously called on Visa and Mastercard to leave the Libra Association, called this behavior "non-American."

Something feels very un-american about this. Two senators writing to Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe to ask them to withdraw from Libra. https://t.co/U3Y7zkuCFB

– Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) October 13, 2019

Developing his thought, Armstrong noted that no matter what exactly someone thinks about Libra, if this is not a useful or innovative tool, people simply will not use it.

“Why this scare tactic? If any private company did this, it would be called anti-competitive / monopolistic behavior, ” he wrote.

The head of Coinbase also wonders if the United States wants a planned economy or if they want the free market to test a thousand ideas in order to find one that turns out to be breakthrough and gives real value.

“Breakthrough ideas are dissent by definition, otherwise they would all have been tried,” Armstrong added.

Do we want to have a centrally planned economy, or let 1,000 ideas be tried in a free market to see which ones break through and deliver real value? Breakthroughs are by definition contrarian ideas, otherwise they would have already have been tried.

– Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) October 13, 2019

Recall, on October 23, Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg will take part in the hearing of the Financial Services Committee of the US House of Representatives, where he will answer questions from lawmakers about the Libra project.

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