> A Visa spokesperson told The Verge. “Visa has decided not to join the Libra Association at this time,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue to evaluate and our ultimate decision will be determined by a number of factors, including the Association’s ability to fully satisfy all requisite regulatory expectations.”
I suspect the regulatory pushback was the least of the problem. These companies (and PayPal) have everything to lose and nothing to gain by helping to advance Libra. The entire business model is to capture value from financial system friction. Eliminating the friction eliminates their reason for being.
It's a classic innovator's dilemma: the action that will save these companies is building the thing that will destroy their business models. They can't do it because established companies are set up to eject people persisting with such notions. That leaves the field open for an out-of-left field solution that does away with the friction and the business models it spawned.
The source of the friction is regulatory. AML. KYC. All the laws that deputize financial institutions as extensions of law enforcement. It's quite expensive.
The only way to eliminate the friction is to eliminate the regulatory liability. And that's what has been happening with Bitcoin for some time.
What is surprising was that these companies ever lent their names to the project in the first place.