The announcement made by Facebook in June 2019 regarding the launch of a multicurrency stablecoin called Libra for cross-border payments is of immense significance. It has been compared to the arrival of the ‘black ships of evil appearance’ in Tokyo harbour in 1853, which led to the collapse of an age-old ruling system in Japan. Central banks and financial regulators had been observing the development of crypto-asset markets outside the traditional financial system for the past decade. Some had even experimented with these technologies to gain a better understanding of their potential use cases. However, the Libra announcement prompted central banks and regulators to take more immediate action in addressing the risks associated with unregulated crypto-asset markets, such as illicit finance, consumer harms, and potential threats to financial stability.