Booking.com becomes the latest company to quit Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency
The official launch of Facebook's new cryptocurrency alliance was overshadowed on Monday by the abrupt departure of Booking.com, leaving the project with just 21 of its original 28 backers.
Booking Holdings, which controls 41pc of the online travel market through services including Kayak and Agoda, confirmed on Monday that it had dropped out on the very same day that it was supposed officially sign up to the project at a meeting in Geneva.
It was the seventh company to exit in the space of one week, joining Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, eBay and others in ducking out amidst unexpected levels of political hostility and regulatory scrutiny.
It came as Facebook attempted to shore up the currency's new governing body, the Libra Association, with companies including Uber, Lyft, Coinbase, Spotify and a number of development charities formally signing on in Switzerland as planned.
"Today marks an important step in our journey to enable billions of people to have access to essential financial services and the world's economy," said a spokesperson for Calibra, Facebook's cryptocurrency subsudiary.
"We are proud to join the Libra Association as collectively we seek to increase innovation and economic empowerment. It is time for change and we are committed to seeing this through."
A spokeswoman for Booking Holdings declined to comment beyond confirming its departure.
The exodus amounts to 25pc of the Association’s intended membership, depriving it of some of its biggest and most powerful companies, as well as most of the payments processors who could have lent it legitimacy.
The Association is intended to take governance of Libra out of Facebook's hands, shielding it from the regulatory and political firestorm which has surrounded the social media giant since the Cambridge Analytica scandal last year.
Due to launch in 2020, Libra is a cryptocurrency, a digital coin that will be traded or sent over Facebook’s apps or used to buy goods. It will be backed by a reserve of regular currencies, including the dollar and sterling.
Facebook is supposed to end up as just one member among many . The Association says that it still intends to have 100 members by the time the coin launches in 2020.
Central bankers and politicians have warned Facebook’s cryptocurrency efforts represent a threat to traditional sovereign currencies, while the digital coin could pose risks to suppressing money laundering and terror financing, critics claim.
