The Facebook-backed digital currency is likely to start as a single coin pegged to the U.S. dollar, followed by tokenized versions of other sovereign currencies and a new composite, according to a Financial Times source. The Geneva-based association governing the project is awaiting regulatory approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. (Financial Times)

Talking point: Central banks expressed grave concerns about the original Libra plan for a new coin backed by an asset reserve, which regulators said could undermine governments’ ability to control their local economies via monetary policies if it became sufficiently popular. In response to those worries, the association announced in April it would instead focus on single-currency stablecoins. The reported plan to launch as a test case just one of those—and one linked to the U.S. dollar, already the default international reserve currency—is a further rollback of the consortium’s ambitions. Both the Trump administration and Congressional Democrats have expressed concerns about Libra—about its anti-terrorist-financing provisions and consumer protections, respectively—so the impending change in the White House may not improve the project’s reception in Facebook’s home market.