‘Hell No’: Jack Dorsey Says Twitter Won’t Be Joining Libra Association

Twitter will not be joining the Libra Association, according to CEO Jack Dorsey.

Dorsey replied with an conclusive “Hell no” to the question of his firm’s potential membership of the Facebook-led crypto payments scheme at a New York City-based Twitter event, The Verge reported Thursday.

He explained that Libra is not based on an open standard, “born on the internet,” and as such:

“It was born out of a company’s intention, and it’s not consistent with what I personally believe and what I want our company to stand for.”

Dorsey further argued that Libra didn’t have to be built around a cryptocurrency to fulfill its purpose.

A noted bitcoin and lightning network advocate, Dorsey launched Square Crypto earlier this year for open development on the bitcoin network. In August, Square Crypto hired bitcoin developer Matt Corallo followed by three other dev hires in September from Facebook, Lightning Labs, and Google.

At the New York event, Dorsey also responded to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the U.S. House Financial Service Committee on Wednesday, according to tweets from The Hollywood Reporter journalist Alex Weprin.

“A lot of it seemed to be based in American tradition,” Dorsey said. “I fear that if we base too much in this one concept, we take away the ability to experiment and expand.”

Dorsey added:

“We are not just serving an American audience, we are serving a global audience … The internet is somewhat of an emerging nation-state.”

In his hearing, Zuckerberg notably said Facebook would be compelled to leave the Libra Association if the project went live before meeting regulatory requirements. The Libra Association is still seeking some 80 additional members before the expected mid-to-late 2020 launch, according to a Libra representative speaking with CoinDesk earlier this month.

Jack Dorsey image via CoinDesk archives