Meta Executive Exodus

With extensive experience as an electrical/software/coding engineer along with having a diverse financial background, Thomas Wettermann’s areas of interest include Machine Learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and Financial Technology (FinTech). For the past few years, Thomas Wettermann has focused on the underlying technologies that support and promote all phases of cryptocurrency, Web 3.0, and metaverse ecosystems.

Meta: Shutterstock

Since May 2019, Facebook has been desperately trying to get its own cryptocurrency after it first floated ideas for a “Global Coin” or “Facebook Coin.” Then, in June of 2019, Facebook formally announced its “Libra” cryptocurrency project. But now after three years of regulatory and legislative scrutiny, multiple rebranding efforts, and an exodus of key crypto executives, it appears that Facebook (now Meta) faces major obstacles in introducing its cryptocurrency.

Exodus of Diem High Ranking Executives

Aside from members leaving the Libra/Diem Association, Meta is now seeing key executives exiting the Novi/Diem project. For example, in September of this year, Eric Nakagawa, who was in charge of Novi’s open-source strategy, left to join cLabs. Others soon followed.

Just last month, Diem’s top crypto executive David Marcus announced that he was leaving by the end of this year. Marcus announced on Twitter that he was exiting Meta because “my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it.”

Marcus, who joined Facebook in 2014, spent the last few years building Novi and is co-founder of Diem.

And now Marcus is the second Novi co-founder to leave in just the last two years. Morgan Beller, another co-founder, left the Novi development team to become a partner at NFX, a venture capital firm.

Stephane Kasriel who joined Meta in August 2020, will take over the lead role of Novi and other related payment projects at Meta.

Recently, Checkout.com lured away Meta executive Meron Colbeci as its chief product officer. With Meta, Colbeci served as the Novi director of product management.

And the former consumer product legal counsel for Novi Rob Collier announced that he was leaving. While at Novi, Collier managed a product team that worked to launch Novi’s crypto wallet.

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