Facebook-Led Libra Names 21-Member Council After Top Firms Flee

Facebook’s embattled cryptocurrency Libra was officially formed in Geneva with its 21 remaining members, Libra announced in a press release on Monday (Oct. 14).

The Libra Association also named its board of directors and formalized the consortium’s executive team following the Monday (Oct. 14) meeting.

Members include Calibra, Coinbase, Xapo, Anchorage, Bison Trails, Creative Destruction Lab, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Ribbit Capital, Union Square Ventures, Breakthrough Initiatives, Illiad, Vodafone, Farfetch, Uber, Lyft, Kiva, Mercy Corps, Women’s World Banking, Spotify and PayU.

The board of directors will consist of five people, all with ties to Facebook: lead David Marcus; Katie Haun, a partner with Andreessen Horowitz; Wences Casares, CEO of Xapo; Patrick Ellis, general counsel at PayU; and Matthew Davie, chief strategy officer of Kiva.

The appointed executive team includes two PayPal alums — Bertrand Perez, who will serve as Libra’s CEO; and Kurt Hemecker, who was named to head of business development. Dante Disparte, the founder and CEO of Risk Cooperative, will remain the head of policy and communications.

The signing of the Libra Association charter comes just hours and days after the high-profile exits of Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Booking Holdings, eBay, Stripe and Mercado Pago.

Despite the exodus, Libra said it has 180 potential members in the wings that meet the organization’s membership criteria. Over 1,500 entities have indicated interest in joining the project, the press release said.

“It was energizing to see reps from many different industries and interests come together with one mission at heart,” Marcus said in a tweet following the Geneva meeting.

When Libra was announced in June, it was hoping to have 100 member companies on board for a 2020 launch. Membership was originally made up of 28 founding members, but the total continues to dwindle amid widespread scrutiny from regulators worldwide.

Each member is expected to invest $10 million to fund the association.