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When social media giant Facebook revealed it would this year release its answer to bitcoin the cryptocurrency community was stunned.

The subsequent international backlash against Facebook's libra served as both vindication for bitcoin and a cause for concernhow would governments allow bitcoin to exist if Facebook's libra could not?

As early backers of the project abandoned it, many thought libra was dead in the water. But Facebook, and its headstrong leader Mark Zuckerberg, aren't ready to give up yet.

Facebook's co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was called before the U.S. House Financial Services ... [+] Committee last year ahead of Facebook's planned libra launch this year--something that boosted the bitcoin price earlier in the year.

Last week, Facebook's independent Libra Association revealed its newest recruit, adding a member for the first time since many of its biggest corporate backers jumped shipmost of which would see their core business undermined by libra, for what that's worth.

Vodafone, for example, pulled out of the Libra project last month to focus on its own digital payments system while the involvement of former Libra Association members Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal was always something of a mystery.

Facebook itself is not part of the Libra Association, a governing council for the cryptocurrency libra, though its subsidiary Calibra, effectively a digital wallet for the libra token, is.

Now, however, Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify, which boasts around 1 million businesses from 175 countries on its digital platform, will join other Libra Association members in contributing at least $10 million and operating a node that processes transactions for libra, a so-called stablecoin, meaning it will float against a basket of traditional currencies.

"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," Shopify said in a blog post.

The official reason many of the Libra Association's founding members bailed out of the project was due to the ferocious regulatory response to the projectU.S. president Donald Trump tweeted his opposition to it and broader cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin while his Treasury secretary branded bitcoin a "national security risk."

Meanwhile, in the months following libra's unveiling, central bankers around the world leaped into action, promising their own digital currency initiatives were well underway and the need for technology companies like Facebook to do what they had so far failed to was unnecessary.

The bitcoin price, which had been sent sharply higher in the first half of 2019 as rumors swirled that Facebook and other Silicon Valley giants were eyeing bitcoin, crypto, and blockchain, faultedlosing around half its value in just a few short months.

The Libra Association has not rested on its laurels, however. It's been working on addressing regulators concerns and has always said it plans to work closely with regulators ahead of libra's launch.

The bitcoin price soared last year ahead of Facebook's unveiling of its libra cryptocurrency project ... [+] but fell as the regulatory backlash grew.

Following the news Shopify would join the now 21 company-strong Libra Association, Libra's head of policy and communications Dante Disparte said the group was "proud" to welcome its newest member and talked up the troubled initiative.

"Shopify joins an active group of Libra Association members committed to achieving a safe, transparent, and consumer-friendly implementation of a global payment system that breaks down financial barriers for billions of people," Disparte said.

If libra, still slated to launch this coming June, is able to achieve these ambitious goals even bitcoin's biggest supporters will find it far harder to convince others that the world needs bitcoin.

See the original post:
The Biggest Threat To Bitcoin Is Back On Track - Forbes