Meta’s Next Steps

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.

First US Novi Introduction

Meta’s WhatsApp and Novi

But things continue on at Meta and with Novi. For example, just last week Meta rolled out the Novi wallet in WhatsApp in the US. Stephane Kasriel, the newly appointed head of Novi, tweeted that this was just an “entry point” and that Meta was “very early“ in the Novi pilot.

Where Does Meta Go From Here?

Meta faces some real challenges in getting regulatory approval of its Diem cryptocurrency (whatever that might be).

First, Meta must try to attract new members to the Diem Association as it has now lost more than 20% of its original members. Meta originally wanted to have at least 100 members in this association, and it is currently well short of this target.

Second, Meta must cope with continued scrutiny, not only US policymakers and regulators but also from the global financial community. This is particularly important given Facebook’s (Meta’s) history of mishandling of privacy and data security issues.

Finally, Meta must stop the brain drain of losing its most experienced crypto executives from the Novi and Diem project teams.

Conclusion

If Meta can see its way through these mounting challenges, there might be some type of Diem cryptocurrency on the horizon. However, it is highly unlikely that Diem (if some form of the coin is eventually adopted and approved) will be anything like the global cryptocurrency that Facebook initially outlined in its 2019 Whitepaper.

Rather, if anything, the Diem cryptocurrency will be some type of stablecoin that is tightly regulated and passes scrutiny from US policymakers and regulators. Similar to the Paxos stablecoin that Meta uses in its current Novi wallet.

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