The social media giant, Facebook, now known as Meta is attempting to sell off its ill-fated cryptocurrency project Diem, Bloomberg reports — the end of the road, seemingly, for the social media giant’s efforts to cash in on blockchain.
It has been reported that the Diem Association, previously known as Libra, is trying to find out ways to return money to its investors and perhaps find a new home.
Facebook made a huge splash in 2019 when it announced Libra, a “stable digital cryptocurrency” that could revolutionize global financial technologies. Even the likes of Uber, Spotify, PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard were on board, signing on as corporate partners with a $10 million stake each.
However, things did not go as planned. The ambitions were thrown upon a wet blanket by the US regulators and even governments around the world.
First, high-profile backers began to withdraw. Then in October 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got grilled in front of Congress for what they called a blatant attempt to escape regulatory approvals. By April 2020, Libra was scaled back significantly to a shadow of what it once was.
Last year, the US Federal Reserve buried any chances of Diem — Libra’s newly adopted name — taking off after striking down a potential deal with holdings company Silvergate Capital, according to Bloomberg.
The initiative kept looking for issuers of what had since turned into a US dollar-backed stable coin. Government officials, however, were still unhappy with the plans, warning that regulators may never give it the greenlight, Bloomberg reports.
According to the outlet, Meta still owns a third of the Diem Association, but the venture’s prospects still look wrapped in gloom and anxiety.