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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government should consider forcing Facebook Inc to freeze work on its new cryptocurrency project, a senior U.S. lawmaker said on Thursday.

Representative Maxine Waters, who chairs the House of Representative Financial Services Committee, said in a CNBC interview the government needs to study cryptocurrencies and Facebook’s initiative, dubbed Libra, further before permitting it to proceed. “We should ask them, as we are doing, or force them in any way that we can to place a moratorium on this new cryptocurrency that they’re putting into place,” she said, without offering specifics.