Libra project also loses parent company of Booking.com as a member

Booking Holdings has exited Facebook’s Libra project. The company behind travel sites such as Booking.com and Priceline has confirmed the departure to Reuters. Earlier this month, the cryptocurrency also lost support from PayPal, eBay, Visa and Mastercard, among others.

A spokesperson for the Libra Association called the departure of Booking Holdings ‘not a setback, but an adjustment’ to Reuters. The American Booking Holdings owns several travel search engines, of which Booking.com is the best known. Other parts of the company include Priceline, Kayak, Cheapflights, Agoda and OpenTable.

After the idleness of the past few weeks, there are still 21 companies that support the cryptocurrency project. They are meeting this week in Geneva for their inaugural meeting, where a five-member board of directors was elected on Monday. The votes went to David Marcus, Facebook’s vice president of Messaging products, as well as representatives from payment service PayU, investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, blockchain company Xapo Holdings Limited and Kiva Microfunds, a non-profit organization.

Since Facebook announced its cryptocurrency Libra last summer, the digital currency has been under constant fire. The news that both the United States and the European Union want to investigate the project seems to deter many companies. In recent weeks, many companies withdrew their support for the project, including key players such as PayPal, eBay, Visa, Mastercard and Stripe.