Bitcoin Crashes Below $7500 Levels As Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Testifies Before U.S. Congress
The world’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin has seen a major crash on Wednesday, October 23, losing $600 in a flash crash and slipping below $7500 making a new low since June 2019.
At press time, the Bitcoin is trading at a price of $7451 with a market cap of $135 billion. The Bitcoin price crash and the overall crypto market downfall came just at time when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of the US Congress addressing lawmakers’ concerns over the Libra launch.
Analysts say that the Bitcoin downfall came amidst negative comments on cryptocurrency by the lawmakers during the hearing at Capitol Hill.
Coming back to Libra, Zuckerberg warned the U.S. lawmakers about China’s development of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and the growing competition in the geopolitical and economic stage.
He said: "China is moving quickly to launch a similar idea in the coming months. We can't sit here and assume that because America is today the leader that it will always get to be the leader if we don't innovate. Libra will be backed mostly by dollars and I believe it will extend America’s financial leadership as well as our democratic values and oversight around the world. If America doesn’t innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed.”
Zuckerberg’s views on China were also shared a day earlier by Facebook’s head of Libra Project - David Marcus - during an interview to Bloomberg news. It looks the Unites States lawmakers are already aware of China’s CBDC threat. According to a latest report, the U.S. central bank is also considering the possibility of having a digital dollar to maintain USD’s position as a global reserve currency.
However, with the Libra cryptocurrency, Zuckerberg assured the lawmakers that would launch their native cryptocurrency only after getting complete approval from the Congress.
However, he stated that he alone cannot stop Libra as the Libra Association consists of several companies being a part of it. But he said that Facebook is willing to pull out if things don’t proceed properly.
He added: “I will certainly stop Facebook’s part of it. The independent Libra Association is a separate thing that exists at this point and if I feel like Facebook can’t be a part of it in keeping with the principles that I’ve laid out then Facebook won’t be a part of it”.
Earlier this month, giants like Mastercard, PayPal, Visa and other have already pulled out of the Libra Association to avoid any conflicts with the regulators.