David Marcus says “I don’t think of Bitcoin as a currency”

When David Marcus said, “I don’t think of Bitcoin as a currency,” the head of Facebook’s cryptocurrency projects made a couple of heads turn. He went on to say that Bitcoin is digital gold but not a good currency for transactions. Is he right? If Bitcoin is like gold as far as a commodity that one invests in, like gold, but has the drastic volatility in the market, the Bitcoin is obviously a bad option for people who need a system for remittances across international borders.

Many people agree that Bitcoin is considered the “gold standard” of cryptocurrency, and Marcus conceded that it may be digital gold, but it’s far from perfect as a medium of exchange. Certainly, he’s a little biased because the Libra project hopes to compete in a stablecoin environment to solve the issues that Bitcoin is not suited for.

A digital currency that is stable and pegged to a fiat currency would be better suited for outward remittances and payment settlement which is a key market that Facebook is targeting with its Libra cryptocurrency and Calibra digital wallet. Unlike Bitcoin, Libra’s value will be tied to currencies like the USD and the Euro, which will help keep it stable. Marcus believes that one of the key reasons that Bitcoin has not been regulated out of existence is because it is not perceived to be a medium of exchange.

“It’s an investment class that’s decorrelated from the rest of the market,” Marcus said. “Why feel threatened by that?”

David Marcus has been the face of Libra and the Calibra digital wallet since Facebook announced the two projects in June, 2019 and he has made multiple public appearances, including a hearing before the U.S. Senate, in an effort to spur support for the new age of remittance.

“People don’t use a unit like digital currency of Bitcoin to pay for things just because it’s so volatile,” Marcus said. “It serves a completely different purpose.”

In a Squawk Box interview on October 16, 2019, Marcus stated that he has been a fan Bitcoin since 2012 but he further explains that Bitcoin is totally different compared to the proposed Libra stablecoin. Marcus stressed that the Libra project is creating an independent, non-volatile and scalable cryptocurrency rather than provide services for a highly volatile asset like Bitcoin.

“If there was a stable, low-volatility, scalable version of Bitcoin that we could use today, my life would be so much simpler. We could just focus on embedding that in the Calibra wallet.”

In the interview, the CNBC host asked about Libra’s backing which is supposed to include a conglomerate of major fiat currencies such as the USD, Euro, Japanese Yen, British Pound and Singapore Dollar, remarking that Libra’s plan to peg the cryptocurrency to multiple fiat currencies may not be a good idea because it would be vulnerable to devaluation. In response, Marcus’ statements follow those of U.S. Representative Warren Davidson, who said that Facebook using Calibra would be a “way better idea” than creating a new asset.







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