Facebook Cryptocurrency Chief Says Libra Is Not a Threat to Bitcoin

In a tweet yesterday, he explained that Libra is designed to be a stable payment system. On the other hand, Bitcoin, he believes, is a store of value or a non-correlated asset, playing into the ‘digital gold’ narrative.

“Many want to pit Libra vs. Bitcoin. In my mind these two are not in the same category. BTC is a decorrelated (investment) asset. Libra is designed to be a stable medium-of-exchange. I have been, and remain a fan of BTC, but for very different purposes.”

Facebook cryptocurrency vs Bitcoin: different uses

Marcus, who was former president at PayPal, claims Libra is a better digital cash and payment system, while bitcoin is a long-term investment vehicle.

As CCN reported, almost no-one is using bitcoin for payment transactions. In 2019, only 1.3 percent of bitcoin transactions involved merchants. In other words, most BTC users are holding for the long term.

However, Marcus may be underestimating bitcoin’s ability to muscle into the payments space in the future. Bitcoin volatility will gradually reduce over time, allowing it to be a more viable form of peer-to-peer transfer and payment system.

David Marcus: “I’m a fan of BTC”

Marcus expanded his thoughts on CNBC, calling the Facebook cryptocurrency a “very high-quality form of digital money.”

“This is really designed from the ground up to be a great medium of exchange and very high-quality form of digital money that you can use for everyday payments, cross border payments, micro transactions.”

His statements are significant. During the entire Libra rollout, none of Facebook’s marketing materials mention bitcoin by name. Marcus has now come out and aligned Libra with the world’s largest cryptocurrency.