Diem 已死：Facebook 是否使用加密货币？

Facebook unveiled its ambitious cryptocurrency plan in June 2020: it partnered with a couple of dozen of other companies to launch a stablecoin project, then called Libra and now Diem. But, now that’s dead.

The Diem Association earlier this month officially announced its decision to sell its intellectual property and other assets related to running the Diem Payment Network to Silvergate Capital, the holding company of California-based crypto-friendly lender, Silvergate Bank, for a total consideration of $184 million.

So, what happened? Why does the social media giant have to pull such a major project?

简短的回答是因为 Facebook 品牌。

Facebook, which has now rebranded itself to Meta and kept the old name only for its legacy social media platform, always touted that it established the stablecoin project independently in collaboration with its other partners. But, that was clearly not the case.

迪姆 （然后    天秤座  ) was meant to be used for transactions within the Facebook ecosystem: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and whatnot. Though it was formed as a non-profit with Swiss headquarters, Facebook Messanger’s former Head, David Marcus was appointed as the Chief Executive. However, he resigned in November 2021.

And, all this happened when Facebook’s reputation was tainted with the Cambridge Analytics scandal, which raised concerns over how a massive tech company like that is handling user data.

Regulators around the world were just not comfortable allowing a platform like Facebook to launch a private currency of its own. One of the primary concerns was that a private currency of a company with a 2.91 billion monthly active user base might severely impact the fiat currencies. Many regulators and regulatory heads even publicly raised this concern.

其他问题包括一家公司对财务数据的处理，该公司已经因对用户数据处理不当而面临失败。 Facebook（现为 Meta）的首席执行官马克扎克伯格甚至不得不在美国国会面前作证，为加密项目辩护。

绝望的尝试

In its original form, Diem was about to be backed by a ‘collection of low-volatility assets like bank deposits and government securities, in currencies from stable and reputable central banks’. In other words, it was another stablecoin in the industry but with the stamp of Facebook.

The project faced regulatory backlash from the beginning that steered eight of its founding members, including Visa, Paypal, Stripe and Mastercard, away from the project.

这家由 Facebook 领导的非营利组织非常绝望，甚至重新设计了    stablecoin  and even rebranded the entire project, calling it Libra, Diem, and its native wallet Calibra, Novi.

“When Facebook launched Diem, they immediately ran into regulatory issues around financial stability and data privacy,” said Joe Burnett, a Mining Analyst at Blockware Solutions.

“由于公司已经面临改进其数据隐私实践的压力，这极大地影响了他们根据从用户那里提取的数据提供高度针对性广告的核心业务模式，因此他们希望避免另一场艰苦的监管战也就不足为奇了。”

Facebook 的加密梦想尚未结束

Though the Diem Association has sold its assets, Facebook is not likely to say goodbye to the crypto industry. The social media company is now betting big on metaverse under the new brand Meta.

Zuckerburg was always vocal about the company plans of creating a 元宇宙 and even showcased a bit of it in some odd demo. Even though a metaverse cannot be co-related directly with crypto, its dependencies on decentralized games and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) will make it necessary to have support for cryptocurrencies.

In addition, Diem retained the Novi wallet that can only store the 的Paxos stablecoin USDP.

“我们未来支持元界商业的举措也可能在数字支付中使用基于区块链的资产。 在支付中使用基于区块链的资产是一项相对较新且未经证实的技术，围绕它们的法律和法规不确定且不断发展，”Meta 最近的一份监管文件称。

Additionally, the company admitted that these types of digital payments are getting scrutinized by the regulators of several jurisdictions. Furthermore, it said that it cannot assure the roll-out of the products in a timely manner due to ‘significant uncertainty’.

“Every company will likely continue to have a crypto strategy,” Burnett added. “It’s tough to say what Meta’s next move will be, but it wouldn’t be too surprising to watch them follow the steps of MicroStrategy, Square (renamed Block) and Tesla who have accumulated a Bitcoin position on their balance sheet.”

“随着 Meta 的用户增长在上一份财报中放缓，他们可以利用多余的现金流积累比特币，以保持和增加股东价值，同时寻找其他机会在公司内部产生 alpha。”
Meta is also reportedly planning to launch an NFT marketplace on Instagram, which is its photo-centric social media platform.

“I don’t think it is likely that Facebook will, itself, try and issue stablecoins again in the future,” said Mathieu Hardy, the Chief Product Officer at OSOM Finance. “But, the US regulators currently seem to believe that ‘private’ stablecoins will coexist along with a potential central bank-issued digital currency, so it’s entirely possible that Facebook simply teams up with a stablecoin issuer to do something that ends up looking very similar to what Diem wanted to achieve.”

Facebook unveiled its ambitious cryptocurrency plan in June 2020: it partnered with a couple of dozen of other companies to launch a stablecoin project, then called Libra and now Diem. But, now that’s dead.

The Diem Association earlier this month officially announced its decision to sell its intellectual property and other assets related to running the Diem Payment Network to Silvergate Capital, the holding company of California-based crypto-friendly lender, Silvergate Bank, for a total consideration of $184 million.

So, what happened? Why does the social media giant have to pull such a major project?

简短的回答是因为 Facebook 品牌。

Facebook, which has now rebranded itself to Meta and kept the old name only for its legacy social media platform, always touted that it established the stablecoin project independently in collaboration with its other partners. But, that was clearly not the case.

迪姆 （然后    天秤座  ) was meant to be used for transactions within the Facebook ecosystem: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and whatnot. Though it was formed as a non-profit with Swiss headquarters, Facebook Messanger’s former Head, David Marcus was appointed as the Chief Executive. However, he resigned in November 2021.

And, all this happened when Facebook’s reputation was tainted with the Cambridge Analytics scandal, which raised concerns over how a massive tech company like that is handling user data.

Regulators around the world were just not comfortable allowing a platform like Facebook to launch a private currency of its own. One of the primary concerns was that a private currency of a company with a 2.91 billion monthly active user base might severely impact the fiat currencies. Many regulators and regulatory heads even publicly raised this concern.

其他问题包括一家公司对财务数据的处理，该公司已经因对用户数据处理不当而面临失败。 Facebook（现为 Meta）的首席执行官马克扎克伯格甚至不得不在美国国会面前作证，为加密项目辩护。

绝望的尝试

In its original form, Diem was about to be backed by a ‘collection of low-volatility assets like bank deposits and government securities, in currencies from stable and reputable central banks’. In other words, it was another stablecoin in the industry but with the stamp of Facebook.

The project faced regulatory backlash from the beginning that steered eight of its founding members, including Visa, Paypal, Stripe and Mastercard, away from the project.

这家由 Facebook 领导的非营利组织非常绝望，甚至重新设计了    stablecoin  and even rebranded the entire project, calling it Libra, Diem, and its native wallet Calibra, Novi.

“When Facebook launched Diem, they immediately ran into regulatory issues around financial stability and data privacy,” said Joe Burnett, a Mining Analyst at Blockware Solutions.

“由于公司已经面临改进其数据隐私实践的压力，这极大地影响了他们根据从用户那里提取的数据提供高度针对性广告的核心业务模式，因此他们希望避免另一场艰苦的监管战也就不足为奇了。”

Facebook 的加密梦想尚未结束

Though the Diem Association has sold its assets, Facebook is not likely to say goodbye to the crypto industry. The social media company is now betting big on metaverse under the new brand Meta.

Zuckerburg was always vocal about the company plans of creating a 元宇宙 and even showcased a bit of it in some odd demo. Even though a metaverse cannot be co-related directly with crypto, its dependencies on decentralized games and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) will make it necessary to have support for cryptocurrencies.

In addition, Diem retained the Novi wallet that can only store the 的Paxos stablecoin USDP.

“我们未来支持元界商业的举措也可能在数字支付中使用基于区块链的资产。 在支付中使用基于区块链的资产是一项相对较新且未经证实的技术，围绕它们的法律和法规不确定且不断发展，”Meta 最近的一份监管文件称。

Additionally, the company admitted that these types of digital payments are getting scrutinized by the regulators of several jurisdictions. Furthermore, it said that it cannot assure the roll-out of the products in a timely manner due to ‘significant uncertainty’.

“Every company will likely continue to have a crypto strategy,” Burnett added. “It’s tough to say what Meta’s next move will be, but it wouldn’t be too surprising to watch them follow the steps of MicroStrategy, Square (renamed Block) and Tesla who have accumulated a Bitcoin position on their balance sheet.”

“随着 Meta 的用户增长在上一份财报中放缓，他们可以利用多余的现金流积累比特币，以保持和增加股东价值，同时寻找其他机会在公司内部产生 alpha。”
Meta is also reportedly planning to launch an NFT marketplace on Instagram, which is its photo-centric social media platform.

“I don’t think it is likely that Facebook will, itself, try and issue stablecoins again in the future,” said Mathieu Hardy, the Chief Product Officer at OSOM Finance. “But, the US regulators currently seem to believe that ‘private’ stablecoins will coexist along with a potential central bank-issued digital currency, so it’s entirely possible that Facebook simply teams up with a stablecoin issuer to do something that ends up looking very similar to what Diem wanted to achieve.”