Libra Won't Spread as Quickly as Facebook, Says Calibra Exec

Libra will take years – if not decades – to catch on says a Calibra executive.

The new stablecoin project won’t scale like social media, said Kevin Weil, vice president of product at Facebook subsidiary Calibra at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal on Tuesday. CNBC reported on his talk.

“This is not going to be a thing that spreads like a social network. This is going to be the work not of years but of decades, and it’s worth making," Weil said.

The Calibra VP further claimed the Libra Association and its members remain determined regardless of the recent high profile departures, including MasterCard and Visa. The 21 initial members signed a formal charter last month in Geneva, Switzerland. Weil said that Libra was just an idea 18 months ago, but now has 21 members and a "bunch more that are looking to be involved."

Weil told Web Summit attendees that users will have more wallets than just Calibra, the Libra-specific wallet Facebook is creating, to choose from. Fears of Facebook using Calibra for discriminatory or otherwise unsavory purposes were recently raised by U.S. lawmakers at a congressional hearing on Libra joined by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg.

Weil reiterated Zuckerberg's hearing statements, saying other wallet options will be available that can still leverage "the accessibility and lower cost brought by the libra ecosystem.”

Indeed, private wallets are already available. Israeli developer ZenGo released a keyless non-custodial Libra-compatible wallet only two weeks after Facebook announced the stablecoin project in June.

Facebook/Libra image via Shutterstock