Anchorage Becomes Founding Member of the Libra Association

Today, we are honored to announce that Anchorage will be a Founding Member of the Libra Association, an independent not-for-profit group responsible for the operation and governance of the Libra network. Libra Association Founding Members include some of the world’s most trusted leaders in finance and technology.

Libra is a new digital currency with the power to open the world economy to everyone. Today’s launch is a watershed moment in the use of blockchain technology to address the world’s biggest problems. Engineered to be secure, fast, and stable, Libra is a cryptocurrency made for use at a global scale, with the potential to propel economic uplift by connecting billions in a shared network of commerce.

Not only do we share Libra’s vision to create global financial infrastructure that will empower billions of people, but as a digital asset custodian for institutional investors, we also share a deep familiarity with the core technical challenges that any project like Libra must solve. It has been a privilege to pool our expertise with other Founding Members, and join in the effort to ensure Libra’s security, scalability, and usability. We are gratified to further advance Libra’s mission in this new role as a Founding Member of the Libra Association.

As a Founding Member, our core responsibilities are to take part in governance decisions regarding Libra’s future, and to maintain a validator node. By maintaining a validator node, we help to ensure that new transaction records are valid, which in turn helps the Libra Blockchain run smoothly. Like a growing number of cryptocurrency projects, the Libra Blockchain validates new blocks of transactions using a consensus mechanism called Proof of Stake. The Libra Blockchain uses a Byzantine Fault Tolerant algorithm, which can tolerate up to one third of the validators being malicious. Libra uses a Proof of Stake approach to determine membership in the algorithm, which ensures consistency and security.

In part because it’s more energy-efficient than alternatives, Proof of Stake is growing in popularity, with 25% of the crypto market cap expected to be made up of Proof of Stake assets within the next year. Staking isn’t the only participatory feature seeing an uptick in adoption: across all of crypto, blockchains are implementing more features that require the use of private keys. From on-chain governance to smart contracts, the future of crypto is participatory.

We built Anchorage to help institutions stay ahead as crypto moves forward. Libra is exactly the kind of asset that Anchorage was created to hold: our custody solution enables online participation with offline assets, so that asset-holders don’t face a trade-off between security and usability.

Libra is an example of how crypto is evolving beyond the constraints of cold storage, and underscores the need for infrastructure that enables secure participation. To have been chosen for this partnership is an extraordinary validation of the technology we’ve developed. We are proud for Anchorage to open up possibilities for the future of crypto, just as Libra opens up possibilities for billions of people around the world.

To learn more about Anchorage, please get in touch.