US Congress Probes Meta’s Cryptocurrency Plans

Maxine Waters, a member of the US House Financial Services Committee, has requested information from Meta regarding the corporation’s potential plans in the digital assets sector.

The legislator addressed a letter to the company’s CEO and founder, Mark Zuckerberg, as well as COO Javier Olivan. The senior Democratic representative expressed concern over five active trademark applications by Meta focused on blockchain and cryptocurrencies, filed on March 18, 2022.

Waters considered this situation indicative of Meta’s intention to expand its presence in the digital assets sphere, contradicting previous statements by company representatives. In October 2023, they assured the Committee that the corporation had no active projects in the cryptocurrency domain.

Meta abandoned its plan to issue the stablecoin Diem (initially Libra), announced in mid-2019, due to pressure from lawmakers. In January 2022, the company sold the project for $200 million to the now-bankrupt Silvergate Bank.

The mentioned patent applications pertain to services for trading, exchange, payments, transfers, wallets, and related equipment in the “blockchain assets” sector, as well as associated software.

In this context, Waters requested detailed information from Meta about its plans regarding Web3 initiatives, including the integration of DLT technology and the launch of a cryptocurrency-based payment platform.

Back in March 2023, the corporation abandoned projects related to non-fungible tokens. It was anticipated that Meta would launch an NFT marketplace in collaboration with Polygon.