The controversial cryptocurrency project that Mark Zuckerberg once defended in front of Congress is unraveling after regulatory pressure.
The Diem Association, a cryptocurrency initiative once known as Libra backed by Meta Platforms Inc., is weighing a sale for its assets as a way to return capital to its investor members, according to Bloomberg.
Diem is in discussions with investment bankers about how best to sell its intellectual property and find a new home for the engineers who developed the technology, cashing out whatever value remains in its once-ambitions Diem coin venture.
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Originally planned as a global private cryptocurrency, the project was scaled back following political and regulatory pressure and a new idea floated, pegging a rebranded Diem token to the US dollar.
In May, Diem said an affiliate of the firm, Silvergate Bank, would be the one to issue the Diem USD stablecoin. However, the Federal Reserve threatened to ice Silvergate, effectively dealing a final blow to Meta’s ambitions.
The writing was already on the wall in December, when David Marcus quit as the boss of Meta’s fintech unit after leading a frustrating effort to launch the Novi digital wallet and its associated stablecoin.
The Diem Association is a member-based association dedicated to building a blockchain-based payment system that supports financial innovation, inclusion, and integrity. Members include, among others: Coinbase, Spotify, PayU, ckeckout.com, Uber. At some point, Visa and Mastercard were on the members’ list also.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
