Billion Dollar Returns Removed from Libra White Paper

With markets mixed, we're hunting for billion dollar returns and the Libra Investment Token in a major revision to the Libra white paper.

Markets Daily Show.December 12, 2019.On Today's episode, we're talking job cuts in the crypto industry, the vanishing Libra Investment Token, and what the late Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker might have thought about a digital dollar.

Not much action in global currency markets either with the dollar looking pretty stable against the euro, yen and British pound.

Libra is of course the high profile, dollar pegged, so called "Stablecoin" project first proposed earlier this year with the support of Facebook, Paypal, Mastercard and other major players.

"The key change, of course, is that interest earned from reserve assets will not be used to pay dividends to investors. This is a considerable departure from the plans first spelled out in June. Indeed, on the Libra website I don't see any obvious mention of dividends at all, or for that matter, any mention of Libra Investment tokens to be offered to early investors." End Quote.

It's just a simpler project without any obvious profit motive, billion dollar returns, or people who stand to substantially gain from its success.

In the U.S., authorities don't seem too keen on the idea: U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last week that he and the current Fed chair, Jerome Powell, agree that there's no need for a digital version of the dollar in the next five years.

Volcker is regarded as perhaps the most effective and credible Fed chief of the past half century, based on his successful push to combat double-digit inflation in the late 1970s and 80s.The promise of these government-backed digital currencies is that they might reduce the need for paper bills and coins, making it easier for consumers and businesses alike to exchange payments.

Jimmy Song, with crypto-focused venture capital firm Blockchain Capital, says he thinks a digital dollar isn't terribly different from the monetary system that Volcker oversaw; basically just a technological upgrade.

Song says a digital dollar wouldn't do anything to change the underlying problem that central banks exercise too much control over the economy.