In these days when our heads are spinning from wave after wave of change, Libra, the cryptocurrency that Facebook has never quite managed to bring into focus, must have been tossed about by the waves more than enough itself, for it has taken a fancy to changing its name.
Stuart Levey, CEO of the Diem Association, one of the names behind Facebook’s Libra project, has said that this change of name emphasises the simple and renewed structure. Diem, whose meaning in Latin is “day”, will be dollar-backed. Up to this point we understand everything.
The Diem Association is an independent membership organisation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
With the value they have gained in recent years, cryptocurrencies are very much on the agenda in the digital world of COVID19. As we know, everyone has come to fear even the money in their own pocket! Money, over which people once said “may the prayer of abundance be upon it”, has now surrendered to the fear of corona. Together with Bitcoin, the crown jewel of these days, digital currencies such as Ripple, Ethereum and Litecoin are being bought by millions of people as an investment. The reason for the rise of cryptocurrencies is, of course, the steering of the GREAT GLOBAL companies, the owners of the flat world.
While some companies develop their own cryptocurrencies and stage their presentations in all their brilliance, the earlier initiatives of Facebook and Telegram towards their own cryptocurrencies had managed to remain a cover story for a long time. After the glittering initiatives of these two companies, to which we grant the most precious hours of our day, official institutions too could not keep themselves from showing closeness to them. The social media giant Facebook had announced its cryptocurrency called Libra some time ago, and had not failed to appear among the cover stories of 2020 either.
The fact that Libra was a project bearing Facebook’s signature had been met with a backlash from the financial systems of states. Indeed, some partners later announced that they were withdrawing from the Libra partnership. But we also knew that Facebook had no intention of giving up its cryptocurrency project. Three days ago this social media giant, the mirror of our personality, decided to continue on its way under a different name.
Diem’s scope is said to be far more limited than in Libra’s first months. The controversies that arose earlier in this venture and the far from reassuring statements of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had led various circles to keep their distance from Libra. The social media giant is expected to bring the Diem project to life on a smaller scale and with lower expectations.
Diem may be launched in the coming months as a cryptocurrency backed by the US dollar. Libra, by contrast, had been developed to be pegged to and exchangeable for many more currencies.
In his statement on the subject, Diem Association CEO Stuart Levey said: “The Diem project will provide a simple platform for accelerating fintech innovation. It will become possible for both customers and businesses to carry out fast and secure payment transactions.” Levey, who also explained why they had changed the name of the project, cited as the reason the fact that the project in its previous form had been perceived differently by various circles. For this reason, he said, they had to take a radical decision. According to Levey, another reason for taking the name Diem is that they have begun to become an autonomous organisation. Levey, who said he expected to see that they could take their decisions more quickly on their own, stated that they also want the people who run these organisations to be names who are masters of their trade.
It is stated that the cryptocurrency, whose new name will be Diem, has been designed so that it can be used on online and offline platforms. The social media giant had earlier decided, along with Libra, to change the name of the digital wallet Calibra as well. At that time the company changed Calibra’s name to Novi. To the founders of DIEM, who claim that in Blockchain Technology the Diem network is built on a secure, scalable and reliable blockchain designed so that anyone can build on it and billions of people can rely on it, we feel like asking DIEM: “won’t you have a big problem of trust with this money, which cannot even settle on a name and which we shall never touch?”
When we heard the name DIEM, the first thing that generally came to mind was “CARPE DIEM”. But when, at the same time, the lights of DIEM25 also began to flash in our minds, we said: let us hope this bodes well.
What is DiEM25, who are they, what are their aims? And does it have anything to do with the association in Switzerland to which the currency is attached? Although we do not yet have a document that settles with certainty whether there is a link between them, the two seem to have a great deal in common in the way their information moves…
DIEM 25 is a pan-European movement of democrats, united by the conclusion that the European Union will survive only if it is radically transformed.
It is a formation that aims to replace the existing structure, which serves the rich and powerful, with a union of all European countries under an independent parliament operating on the basis of a Constitution that protects all Europeans as equal citizens and is designed to secure their prosperity and happiness. It is a group that is utterly certain that, in order to achieve this, it will never give up, whoever may stand in its way, and that it will be honest.
DIEM25 says: “The response of those in power has been to entrench still further the politics that dragged us into this mess. Borders are closing, solidarity is disappearing, member states are leaving or turning outright fascist. Times of great crisis are also times of great opportunity. That is why we have come together to take over the EU. Abandoning the European project and returning to separate nations is not an option. The environmental, economic and coronavirus crises have proven what we already knew: real solutions for the many, not the few, can come only when we join forces across borders.”
As for DiEM25’s mission: “A coordinated effort to unite like-minded citizens all over Europe and to create enough power to save the EU from itself. The EU will either unite or perish. We must act quickly, before it is too late: that is why we are the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25).”
Its policies: “DiEM25 has eight Pillars on which it builds its path to a truly democratic Europe: Transparency , Technology , Economy , Environment , Refugees and Migrants , Culture , Post-Capitalism and the European Constitutional Process . These policies are developed through a unique collaboration between the members of the movement, the intellectual expertise our project attracts and the general public. Together we are building our vision for the Europe of the future. We do not merely demand change: we describe it and we fight for it.”
As for the goals under the heading of Technological Sovereignty: “DiEM25 believes that Europe can be a beacon of hope if it combines political, social and technological progress and places the flourishing of all people at the centre of technological change. This could have a transformative effect on a global scale.”
Regarding the DIEM25 organisations: they claim to be an international movement with a simple but radical goal, and their aim is to democratise Europe.
What kind of day will it be, I wonder, the day, whose date we cannot yet know, when we pull these masks away from our eyes?
Keywords: Bitcoin Facebook Libra
Translated from the Turkish original.