Quant Lipton pans Facebook’s Libra

Former Bank of America exec sees more potential in rival projects, such as utility settlement coin

Like an “elephant in a china shop”. That’s how Alexander Lipton, former co-head of the global quantitative group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, describes Facebook’s effort to launch a digital currency, called Libra.

Speaking at Risk.net’s Quant Summit on July 18, Lipton said it was “far-fetched and slightly demeaning to suggest a company scrip as a future of money”.

Facebook claims Libra – which will be backed by a basket of fiat currencies and run on a permissioned blockchain network –