David Marcus shared the sad story about the Crypto & Blockchain project of Meta (formerly Facebook) and claimed that the company faced a downfall in this sector because of political interference.
Libra, later rebranded as Diem, was a popular stablecoin project introduced by social media giant company Facebook (now Meta) in 2019. Facebook was focused on increasing the use of stablecoin & Blockchain in digital payment services, but his stablecoin project faced intense regulatory pressure across multiple jurisdictions. Because of concerns over privacy, financial stability, and Facebook’s history with user data, many political leaders opposed this company. Finally, Facebook sold the majority of the stakes to other companies. Despite rebranding and multiple adjustments, the project failed to survive. Now, the majority of the former Libra employees work for Layer-1 blockchains Aptos and Sui crypto projects.
On 30 Nov 2024, David Marcus, former head of the Libra project and a former Coinbase board member, shared the backend story behind the downfall of the Libra stablecoin project. He said that the project was killed by politicians, even though there was not a regulatory hurdle or angle.
Former Facebook (now Meta) executive says "There was no legal or regulatory angle left for the government or regulators to kill the Libra/Diem stablecoin project. It was 100% a political kill—one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions"
— Bitcoinik (@Bitcoinikdotcom) December 1, 2024
He also stated that huge nonstop efforts in this project to appease lawmakers and regulators, the project grabbed only limited support from some of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.Those top politicians & government officials who supported the Libra project faced intense regulatory pressure from other politicians, so they also stepped back from supporting Facebook.
However, it was a painful story for a crypto project, but Marcus said that it was a lesson for crypto projects to start a long-term survival project by focusing on the fundamentals, which people can easily trust & adopt, like Bitcoin.
Read also: Ripple ($XRP) may soon secure regulatory approval for Ripple Stablecoin ($RLUSD)
