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Mark Zuckerberg’s Diem cryptocurrency plans unravel as Meta weighs sale amid regulatory pressure

  • Meta Platforms is weighing a sale of assets to return capital to investor members after the Federal Reserve indicated it was uneasy with the cryptocurrency plan
  • Facebook unveiled Diem as Libra in 2019 with plans to revolutionise global financial services, but it immediately drew regulatory scrutiny

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Facebook rebranded its blockchain-based Libra currency as Diem after the plan drew scrutiny from financial regulators around the globe. Photo: dpa
Bloomberg
The controversial cryptocurrency project that Mark Zuckerberg once defended in front of Congress is unravelling after regulatory pressure.

The Diem Association, a cryptocurrency initiative once known as Libra backed by Meta Platforms Inc, is weighing a sale of its assets as a way to return capital to its investor members, according to people familiar with the matter. Diem is in discussions with investment bankers about how best to sell its intellectual property and find a new home for the engineers who developed the technology, cashing out whatever value remains in its once-ambitious Diem coin venture, said the people, asking not to be identified because the discussions aren’t public.

In 2019, when Meta’s Facebook first unveiled the idea of its stable digital currencies – stablecoins – aimed at revolutionising global financial services, they did so in collaboration with dozens of other companies. But the consortium wasn’t enough to protect the project from worldwide regulatory scrutiny. After Zuckerberg was called to testify, some partners abandoned the project and it changed its name to Diem. Diem’s ambitions scaled back and its founder, David Marcus, left Meta last year. The association struck an arrangement with Silvergate Capital Corp to issue Diem, but resistance from the US Federal Reserve dealt the effort a final blow, the people said.

Diem said in May that an affiliate of the firm, Silvergate Bank, was to be the issuer of the Diem USD stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar that’s typically used to buy and sell other crypto. After a lengthy back-and-forth between the Diem advocates and regulators, Fed officials finally told Silvergate last summer that the agency was uneasy with the plan and couldn’t assure the bank that it would allow that activity, the people said.

Without a green light from the bank’s regulator, Silvergate was left unable to issue the new asset with confidence the Fed wouldn’t crack down, and so the Diem effort had no coin.

A Fed spokesman declined to comment on the agency’s talks with the Diem advocates. The Diem Association declined to comment. Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s unclear how a potential buyer would value Diem’s intellectual property, or the engineers that helped develop it. Discussions are early, the people cautioned, and there’s no guarantee Diem will find a buyer.

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