The King Is Dead, Long Live The King - Comment

It certainly looks like some significant institutional players have realized that the best way to deal with the revolution is to join it and shape it to their requirements.

Revolutions are a funny business: initial uprisings against the self-serving structures of old orders often become post-revolutionary regimes forming new self-serving structures betraying the ideals that fueled the original revolution. 'Twas ever thus. Are we living to see a digital version of this familiar cycle of history?

Much has been made of Facebook's announcement of Project Libra – its intention to launch a new global peer-to-peer payment network in 2020. Some see Libra as the ultimate affirmation of the rumbling financial revolution which began around 2008 with the near-collapse of the global banking sector and the emergence of Bitcoin as the answer to the colossal breakdown in trust. Others see it as more evidence that the revolution has been co-opted by the failed financial