Shopify has joined the Libra Association for ostensibly all the right reasons, but it is unclear how Libra will be governed. Everyone should be suspicious until Libra communicates how different use cases will be prioritized, how worldwide regulations will be taken into account, and how upgrades to the infrastructure will be managed.
A great template for Libra to follow would be the Sovrin Foundation:
“Shopify stressed that helping merchants reduce fees and bringing commerce opportunities to developing nations as reasons it’s joining the Libra Association . “Much of the world’s financial infrastructure was not built to handle the scale and needs of internet commerce,” Shopify writes. Here are the most critical parts of its announcement:
Our mission is to make commerce better for everyone and to do that, we spend a lot of our time thinking about how to make commerce better in parts of the world where money and banking could be far better . . . As a member of the Libra Association, we will work collectively to build a payment network that makes money easier to access and supports merchants and consumers everywhere . . . Our mission has always been to support the entrepreneurial journey of the more than one million merchants on our platform. That means advocating for transparent fees and easy access to capital, and ensuring the security and privacy of our merchants’ customer data. We want to create an infrastructure that empowers more entrepreneurs around the world.”
None of this can evolve if Libra isn’t transparent regarding how it will be governed.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group