By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 23rd, 2024
Joining the Libra Association, Tagomi will contribute at least $10 million to spend on the developing cryptocurrency. It will also support Libra, providing the necessary technical and policy assistance.
Crypto prime brokerage Tagomi joins Facebook‘s Libra Association. The company will be the 22nd member of the Association and the second to join since the group’s formal foundation in October 2019. Tagomi President Marc Bhargava has already confirmed the news. But the formal announcement from Tagomi will come on Friday or at the beginning of next week.
We're excited to become a member of @Libra_ , sharing a common mission to expand financial inclusion. We believe the Libra project is poised to create a simple, inclusive, and global payment system that will empower billions of people left out of the global economy.
— Tagomi (@tagomisystems) February 26, 2020
Tagomi is a two-year-old startup that positions itself as a prime broker in crypto. It offers trading, custody, margin, lending, shorting, staking, financing, all in one account. Tagomi aims to bridge institutional capital to digital assets and fuel their democratization. Since its founding, the company has raised $28 million. Tagomi was founded by Jennifer Campbell, a former investor at Union Square Ventures, which is also a member of the Libra Association. With headquarters in New York, the company has 25 employees across five offices. Notably, Tagomi has BitLicence that allows it to serve New York residents.
Joining the Libra Association, Tagomi will contribute at least $10 million to spend on developing cryptocurrency. And this investment will be eligible to reap dividends from interest earned on money the Libra Reserve keeps. Tagomi will also operate a node to validate transactions conducted through the Libra blockchain. Besides, the broker will support Libra, providing the necessary technical and policy assistance. This support will make the cryptocurrency safer and more compliant with international law.
For the Libra Association, this support is vital, as the group has had regulatory concerns since its founding.
Membership Turnover in Libra Association
Tagomi joins Facebook’s Libra Association soon after Shopify, a Canadian multinational e-commerce company that announced its membership last week.
While Tagomi and Shopify are happy to join the group, other members have scurried to leave it. Earlier, Vodafone, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Mercado Pago, PayPal, Booking Holdings, and eBay have abandoned the project. Most of the former members explained their decisions by regulatory pressure from the U.S. authorities. As all of them are keen on maintaining a healthy relationship with regulatory bodies, they had to pull out from the group.
The Libra Association is an independent, not-for-profit membership organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Its aim is to coordinate and provide a framework for governance over the Libra network and reserve and lead social impact grant-making in support of financial inclusion. Its founding members include Uber, Spotify, PayU, and Facebook.
This year, the Association is planning to add more members. At the moment, there are about 1,500 companies on its waitlist. To join the Libra Association, a two-thirds majority of existing participants must agree to accept a new member.