Chairwoman Maxine Waters of the United States House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee cited Facebook’s past issues when asking the company to temporarily its plans temporarily for Project Libra, Facebook’s long-awaited cryptocurrency, until hearings could be held. She expressed concern about Facebook’s unchecked reach into user’s lives, cybersecurity, trading risks and privacy. Facebook said they welcomed questions.

Waters' announcement came on the same day as Facebook released a whitepaper about the project. The paper explains the not-for-profit Libra Association will govern the new cryptocurreny and the Libra Association Council will govern the Libra Association. Council members include Uber, Coinbase, eBay, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe and more. A digital will launch along with the new digital coin, Libra. The wallet, offered by Facebook subsidiary Calibra, will work with Messenger and WhatsApp, allowing users to make donations, send money worldwide and make purchases.

Another member of the Financial Services Committee, Rep. Patrick McHenry,said in a letter that the committee wanted to assess Facebook's crytocurrency's "potential unprecedented impact on the global financial system." Waters and McHenry are not alone; Sherrod Brown, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, tweeted about how Facebook shouldn't be allowed to create a new cryptocurrency without oversight as they exploited user's information in the past.

Brown, along with Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Mike Crapo, sent Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg a letter expressing concern about how social media may make data available which can have an effect on user's financial lives. They also want to know if Facebook uses financial data to target consumers. Facebook is still drafting a reply to the letter.

The attention shows the extent of the regulatory hurdles Facebook will face before the company can officially release their digital coin. Facebook expects to launch Libra in the first half of 2020.