Crypto exchange Binance challenges Facebook’s Libra with its own coin

Facebook’s Libra hasn’t even properly launched yet (and it won’t for many more months), and competitors are already cropping up. 

Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges by volume, has announced Project Venus, an initiative to create localized stablecoins — cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged to that of an asset such as gold or the U.S. dollar — all across the globe. 

Like Facebook’s Libra, Venus is an open blockchain project, and Binance is seeking partners among governments and corporations to create stablecoins that will “empower developed and developing countries to spur new currencies.”

But unlike Libra, whose announcement was supported by a hefty amount of documentation, the details about Project Venus are scarce and boil down to a short announcement on Binance’s site. 

It appears that the company plans to use its Binance Chain to launch these stablecoins. Binance points out it has already issued several of those, including the BTC-pegged BTCB and the British Pount-pegged BGBP. 

Another big difference between Venus and Libra is that Facebook has secured a large number of big partners for the launch, while Binance appears to be merely issuing a call for all interested parties to participate. 

“Binance will provide full-process technical support, compliance risk control system and multi-dimensional cooperation network to build Venus, leveraging its existing infrastructure and regulatory establishments,” said the company in the announcement. 

Binance’s initiative appears to be less fleshed out than Libra, but Binance does have the advantage of being a well-known name in the cryptospace, as well as already having some of the infrastructure needed to launch new cryptocurrencies. Facebook’s enormous reach and privacy-related issues have prompted regulators to bludgeon Facebook with questions on compliance with laws and regulations; Binance, which was founded in China but has since moved to Malta, probably won’t have to deal with such issues — at least not right away.