Steve Forbes puts out open letter advising Mark Zuckerberg on Project Libra

The Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media, Steve Forbes, put out an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg on June 25 telling him what to do about Libra.

From fiat to Libra

“Your company made big headlines when it announced it would be launching Libra,” the letter starts. He goes on, saying that there is a ton of justified skepticism surrounding the project. But, the founder of the social media giant shouldn’t “lose heart” because of it.

Forbes goes on, saying that many companies try to create their own form of currency. Airlines’ frequent flier miles are one such example. That and other companies have all sorts of different loyalty programs and other points systems that inspire customers to keep shopping.

He then says Libra could be to finance what Henry Ford was for cars. It could “replace the U.S. dollar” as the global currency. That’s quite a bold claim, but if anyone nowadays is to do something of that caliber, it’s Mark Zuckerberg.

The Chief then goes on to say that Libra is ahead of other cryptocurrencies due to its stability:

“Money measures value the way a scale measures weight or a clock measures time. Most cryptos–whose values fluctuate violently from one moment to the next–are great as speculative vehicles, but they’re useless as real money. No one in his right mind would write a contract longer than 24 hours in bitcoin. With cryptocurrencies, it’s steak one day and dog food the next. But if you can invent a truly stable cryptocurrency that can actually be used for day-to-day transactions and for longer-term contracts and investment vehicles, you’ll be a winner.”

From here, Forbes essentially asks Zuckerberg to make Libra “as good as gold”. He shouldn’t back it with other currencies. Instead, make Libra self-reliant. The editor then gives his final useful piece of advice, to name the currency the “Mark”. Who knows, maybe the Mark could be the new standard for online trading.