Diem team members raise $200M to launch blockchain derived from it

Former Meta employees and key players behind the firm’s defunc stablecoin project Diem have raised $200 million to expand a new project dubbed “Aptos.” Aptos was cofounded by former Novi — Meta’s crypto unit — strategic partnerships lead Mo Shaikh and tech lead Avery Ching. The duo arenow serving as the CEO and CTO for […]

Meta's head of crypto to step down at end of year

David Marcus, the head of Meta’s cryptocurrency and fintech unit Novi, will step down from his role by the end of 2021. Taking over from Marcus will be Stephane Kasriel, the former CEO of Upwork who has been at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, since August 2020. Marcus announced the decision via a Dec. 1 […]

Senators pressure Facebook to ‘immediately discontinue’ Novi wallet pilot

Five senators have called for the immediate closure of Facebook’s new crypto wallet just hours after it was launched in a partnership with Coinbase. Crypto skeptic Senator Elizabeth Warren was one of the five urging Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to “immediately discontinue” the project. In a letter sent to Zuckerberg on Tuesday, the five senators wrote: […]

Top engineers working on Facebook’s wallet jump ship to A16z’s crypto fund

Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), a leading venture capital firm operating in the crypto sector, has nabbed two of the leading engineers working on Facebook’s digital currency project for its digital asset fund. According to an Oct. 11 report from CNBC, Nassim Eddequiouaq and Riyaz Faizullabhoy have jumped ship from Facebook to A16z after spending two years […]

New name, old problems? Libra’s rebrand to Diem still faces challenges

Facebook-backed Libra Association’s rebrand to Diem looked to quash negative perceptions of the project, but its new name has not changed the regulatory pressures the project still faces. It has been 18 months since Facebook announced that it was looking to launch its very own payments system project that would plug into its social media […]