Facebook Inc. rallied before the opening bell on Tuesday as investors decided to bet on its long-awaited digital currency project. The giant social media operator decided to launch Libra via a nonprofit entity based in Switzerland to enable users to store and send money all over the world. It said the asset would be based on open source software.
The company based in California is establishing a subsidiary called Calibra to run the digital wallet. Partnerships were agreed with 27 companies including payments operators for the Libra, for which Facebook said would be backed by real money, unlike most cryptocurrencies.
Shares jumped as much as 2.75% to $194.2 apiece. As of yesterday's close, they gained 44.18% year to date compared to the gain of 18.9% since the end of December in the benchmark Nasdaq 100 index.
