The Libra/ Diem cryptocurrency project that was started so long ago by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is presently up for sale. The project has come crashing down underneath the heavy regulatory scrutiny it’s experienced, and it looks like Zuckerberg is eager to move on.
Facebook Is Looking to End Libra Once and For All
The goal is to sell all current assets presently stored in the Diem Association. This way, funds can be returned to investors and the company – now known as Meta – can revert to doing other things and concentrating on the future. The firm is allegedly talking with investment bankers about what to do next. Apparently, the company is looking to sell its intellectual property and reclaim whatever value is left. The firm is also looking to place its engineers that designed the crypto technology in other departments.
It can be argued that Diem – formerly known as Libra – is one of the biggest failures to occur within the crypto space. The project was announced in the summer of 2019. That’s going on three years now, and it has experienced twists and turns with every step. The project has never been able to get off the ground, largely because of the strict pressure regulators and members of Congress have put on Facebook given its past with Cambridge Analytica.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal occurred in the year prior to Libra’s announcement. The social media giant was allegedly in cahoots with the company and selling users’ private data to executives for advertising purposes. There was just one problem… Nobody knew this was happening. As a result, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg had to sit before a regulatory committee and answer some harsh questions about what his goals were and where he got the nerve to do what he did.
Things Were Just Too Scary to People
Congress wasn’t convinced by the responses he gave, and as a result, Facebook was forced to pay a fine that sat in the billions. About a year later, the firm – which changed its name to Meta in 2021 – decided that it was going to cash in on the growing crypto craze and create Libra, which would later be called Diem (there’s a lot of name-changing going on around here). The firm would establish a cryptocurrency that customers could utilize to purchase goods and services. They could also store it in a digital wallet known as Calibra.
Unfortunately, the Cambridge Analytica scandal was still fresh in everybody’s heads, and nobody wanted to get involved with Facebook’s new financial goals. They did not want to share their monetary information with the company, and Libra was never quite able to get off the ground. David Marcus – the head of the blockchain division at Facebook – also wound up leaving the firm, and now it looks like the company is ready to call it quits and focus on other areas.
