Illustration by William Joel / The Verge
Mastercard, eBay, and Stripe have all withdrawn from the Libra Association, dealing a major blow to Facebook’s plans for a distributed, global cryptocurrency. The withdrawals were first reported by the Financial Times and Bloomberg.
Mastercard, eBay, and Stripe backed out just one week after PayPal (eBay’s former parent company) withdrew from the association. The move also comes just days before the first official meeting of the Libra Association, scheduled for October 14th in Geneva, which will likely result in more specific commitments from all the members involved. Still, the defections leave Libra in a precarious place as they hope to move beyond initial criticisms of the project.