Meta’s ambition in the cryptocurrency sector has been cut short. The stablecoin Diem has been dead and buried since January, and the Novi wallet will close on September 1.
Three years ago, the company known as Facebook at the time unveiled the Libra project: a cryptocurrency, Libra therefore, and a wallet called Calibra. To steer this project, a consortium has been set up with several big names in finance and banking networks.
A wallet that makes pschiit
Everything seems ready for Libra to sweep the world… But the financial authorities, in the United States in particular, have decided otherwise. Under pressure, Facebook reviews the wings of the Libra project, changes the name of the crypto, which has become Diem, and of the wallet, Novi.
Last October, Meta launched the pilot project of a Novi application with a handful of users in the United States and Guatemala. The idea is to make it possible to exchange money as simply as sharing a message, all at no cost. Novi also integrated into WhatsApp in December for a few US messaging users.
But while Diem was the ideal cryptocurrency for this experiment, Meta chose to use another stablecoin, USDP. Not enough to give confidence in the choices of the company… In November, David Marcus, the leader of Meta who oversaw the creation of Libra, left the group. And at the beginning of the year, the Novi/Libra association was scuttled after the departure of several participants. Diem’s assets were sold.
Consequently, there was not much left of the experimentation of Meta, which announced the shutdown of Novi for September 1st. However, the parent company of Facebook intends to recycle Novi’s technologies for other projects, in particular in the metaverse where payments will have a primordial place for the good health of the virtual universe.