A cryptocurrency that Facebook hopes will revolutionise how people spend money. It's a digital currency, without physical elements like notes or coins. Payments are encrypted, making them almost impossible to hack, and recorded in a blockchain, which is a peer-to-peer database. It's not linked to a bank, so you can send money anonymously. It claims Libra (logo pictured above right) will "empower" the 1.7 billion people globally who don't have bank accounts, promoting the currency as some kind of social crusade. But really it's about attracting even more people to the social network, and getting those who already use it to do so more frequently. The idea is to let people send Libra 'coins' by Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp (which Facebook owns).
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