Jack Dorsey trashes Facebook's Libra, say it's not even a cryptocurrency

Jack Dorsey has some thoughts on Libra. Namely, it's bullshit.

Speaking at today's Twitter News Summit in New York City, the pro-Bitcoin CEO took Facebook's so-called cryptocurrency project to task for being, essentially, a gimmick. He insisted that Libra isn't even a real cryptocurrency, and that his company will have nothing to do with it.

Dorsey's comments, in response to the question if Twitter would ever join Libra, were captured by CNN media (and ex-Mashable) reporter Kerry Flynn.

"Hell no," said Dorsey. "Nothing within Libra had to be a cryptocurrency to do what they want to do. They use that label liberally. It’s completely incorrect."

Tweet may have been deleted

Dorsey didn't stop there, implying that Libra's association with cryptocurrency stinks of a marketing stunt.

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"I don’t know if it’s a gimmick," he told the crowd, "but cryptocurrency wasn’t necessary to make that thing work."

Importantly, Dorsey's not the only one who thinks Libra's cryptocurrency claims are a bit of a stretch. Riccardo Spagni, noted cryptocurrency expert and lead maintainer of Monero, told Mashable over Twitter direct message that calling Libra a cryptocurrency is "intellectually dishonest and decentralisation theatre, at best."

Spagni wasn't finished.

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"Not to put too fine a point on it, but from a technical perspective there is little difference between Libra's consensus mechanism deciding if your transaction is worthy of inclusion, and Visa alone deciding if your transaction should be processed," explained Spagni. "It’s central banking by another name, a permissioned central banking committee instead of a government-appointed one."

Facebook, it would seem, still needs to win over more than just Congress if Libra is ever to gain widespread acceptance.