More Libra partners vanish into thin air for Facebook
Libra is the zodiac sign of air in astrology, so it may be fitting that Facebook called its planned cryptocurrency Libra because its partners keep vanishing into thin air.
Late Friday, Ebay, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard bowed out of the Libra Association, the organization created by Facebook to build a global digital cryptocurrency. Last week, PayPal announced it would not participate.
"We highly respect the vision of the Libra Association; however, eBay has made the decision to not move forward as a founding member,'' eBay said in a statement.
Libra co-founder David Marcus thanked Visa and Mastercard for participating in the project via Twitter.
The 28 companies announced in June technically are provisional partners which means they likely did not pay the $10 million to join the association. The Libra Association declined to comment on the $10 million fees, but in a statement to FOX Business, Dante Disparte, head of policy and communication for the Libra Association said, "We appreciate their support for the goals and mission of the Libra project. We are focused on moving forward and continuing to build a strong association of some of the world’s leading enterprises, social impact organizations and other stakeholders to achieve a safe, transparent, and consumer-friendly implementation of a global payment system that breaks down financial barriers for billions of people."
Despite the high-profile departures of these leading companies, Disparte added, "Although the makeup of the Association members may grow and change over time, the design principle of Libra’s governance and technology, along with the open nature of this project ensures the Libra payment network will remain resilient. We look forward to the inaugural Libra Association Council meeting in just 3 days and announcing the initial members of the Libra Association."
Other companies that announced in June that they would join and have not announced a departure include Spotify, Uber, Lyft and Vodafone.
This story was updated at 5:33 pm ET to include comments from the Libra Association and updated again at 6:24 pm ET to include David Marcus' tweet.