It’s an interesting plan and Facebook certainly has the wherewithal to try it. The greatest flaw I see is that Facebook is, perhaps, the least trusted company on the planet. They are continually getting caught lying and abusing their users. Currency is all about trust that the value tomorrow will be consistent or predictable – with acceptable variances. Who is going to trust a Facebook currency?

Facebook Inc. unveiled plans for a new cryptocurrency called Libra this week. When it launches in 2020 or later, it will be a stablecoin–a digital currency that doesn’t fluctuate much because it’s supported by established government-backed currencies and securities.

The world’s largest social media company published a 12-page white paperon Libra and has more than 20 partners for the project. But there are still many questions. After a week of analysis, here’s what Bloomberg reporters and editors know about Libra, along with key unknowns that remain:

Joe Weisenthal, executive editor: digital news at Bloomberg:

For sure: Libra is being touted as a cryptocurrency, so it’s natural to use existing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum as mental models for what it could be. But it’s probably better to think instead about traditional peer-to-peer payment networks. Whether you’re talking about PayPal, Venmo, Square, WeChat, or even Western Union, all of these networks are in some way layered on top of the traditional financial system in order to ease some type of transaction (e-commerce, check-splitting, remittances). The problem is that these networks aren’t interoperable, and in many cases the fees can be quite high. Like all these other networks, Libra will be layered on top of the existing financial system, since each coin will be backed by traditional money in the bank to support a stable price. Unlike these other networks, however, there is an opportunity to create payments unification on a global scale, and at potentially a much lower cost. And in theory, anyone will one be able to build payment applications on top of Libra. Some might focus on friends splitting the cost of dinner. Others might be focused on remittance payments to developing markets. In the most extremely successful version of Libra, it’s not so much a cryptocurrency, but a global operating system for moving fiat money around.