Media: Silvergate Capital to acquire Meta’s Diem project for $200 million

The California-based bank Silvergate Capital has agreed to acquire for $200 million the assets of the Diem project (formerly Libra), backed by Meta. The report comes from WSJ.

In May, the Diem Association reached an agreement with Silvergate Capital to issue Diem, with Silvergate to become the issuer of a dollar-backed stablecoin. However, the U.S. Federal Reserve did not grant approval.

The plans by Facebook (now Meta) to launch its own cryptocurrency became known in 2018.

In June 2019, the basket-backed stablecoin Libra project was officially announced with the publication of the white paper. At the same time, Facebook unveiled the Calibra wallet. Earlier, the unit behind the project was led by former Coinbase board member and Facebook vice president David Marcus.

To manage the payments network, Facebook created the not-for-profit Libra Association. Among its members were Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Uber, Spotify, Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase and other well-known companies.

The Facebook cryptocurrency project drew regulator concern, and in July hearings on it were held before the United States Senate Banking Committee.

In October, it emerged that Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe were not rushing to sign official documents to participate in the Libra Association, citing regulatory concerns. They subsequently left the project.

In May 2020, Facebook rebranded the Libra wallet from Calibra to Novi and created a new operator for it. In December, the consortium behind the project changed its name to the Diem Association.

Despite repeated announcements, the launch of the Diem coin never occurred.

In December 2021, Meta’s head of payments, David Marcus, announced his departure from the company.

Earlier, the Diem Association was reportedly considering the possibility of selling intellectual property and other assets to return capital to investor members.

The consortium is also seeking new roles for its engineers and developers.

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