Facebook's Diem Digital Currency is Dead, Report Says

Diem — the digital currency that Facebook wanted to launch — is dead, according to reports.

Bloomberg News claims that the Diem Association is considering whether to begin selling its intellectual property — and engineers who worked for the project may be moved to other companies.

The news outlet's sources suggest this amounts to "cashing out whatever value remains" in the embattled project, which has faced a staunch pushback from regulators since the beginning.

Mark Zuckerberg first unveiled the proposals back in 2019 — and envisaged launching a stablecoin called Libra. An independent association was also established that counted the likes of PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and Vodafone as members — but all of these big brands ended up withdrawing.

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A Big Pushback

Politicians and central banks wasted little time in declaring that Libra had the potential to undermine the U.S. dollar and trigger financial stability — with some even claiming that this digital asset could do more harm to America than 9/11. Others argued that the tech giant was unfit to operate a private currency following a string of controversies.

Perhaps surprised by the extent of the pushback, Zuckerberg went back to the drawing board — rebranding Libra as Diem, and watering down the proposals.

But there has been little in the way of progress over recent months, and some telling developments that indicate Diem has fallen by the wayside.

Novi — the digital wallet that is backed by Meta — has begun trials in parts of the U.S. and Guatemala. An integration into WhatsApp is also being piloted. But crucially, these tests have been relying on the Paxos Dollar in order to complete transactions rather than Diem.