New draft legislation on stablecoins in the United States House of Representatives proposed to impose a two-year ban on new algorithmically pegged stablecoins like TerraUSD (UST). The proposed legislation would require the Department of the Treasury to conduct a study of stablecoins similar to UST in collaboration with the United States Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Securities and Exchange Commission. An algorithmic stablecoin is a digital asset the value of which is kept steady by an algorithm. While an algorithmic stablecoin is pegged to the value of a …

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 the new firm. Both left the company in December, prior to Diem being sold to Silvergate Capital in February this year. The team is building a decentralized Layer 1 blockchain that is partly based on Move, the coding language initially developed for Diem. The company …

On Jan. 31, Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announced that it was pulling from its stablecoin project, Diem, formerly known as Libra. Intellectual property and other assets related to the operations of the Diem Payment Network were to be sold to Silvergate Capital Corporation, essentially meaning the end to Mark Zuckerberg and his corporations’ stablecoin aspirations, at least in their current shape. This also marks the end of a once-groundbreaking initiative that was revealed in 2019 with a promise to bring a global alternative to fiat money to Facebook’s 2-billion-strong user base. Here is how this plan went from the …

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey said that Meta’s failed cryptocurrency project Diem was “wasted effort and time,” and it should have focused its efforts on “making Bitcoin more accessible for everyone.” MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor interviewed Dorsey on Tuesday at his company’s “Bitcoin for Corporations 2022” conference about how corporations could integrate and use Bitcoin (BTC). Dorsey said that although Facebook probably started Diem for “the right reasons,” it should’ve used an open-ended protocol like Bitcoin rather than attempting to create its own currency. “This whole thing with Libra and then Diem, I think there’s a ton of lessons there,” Dorsey …

Meta, formerly branded as Facebook, has officially announced the closure of its digital currency project Diem after years of major efforts to move forward with the initiative. Announcing the news on Monday, Diem CEO Stuart Levey confirmed that Meta is selling intellectual property and other assets related to the Diem stablecoin project to its Silvergate Capital Corporation. The Diem Association and its subsidiaries will start winding down operations “over the coming weeks,” Levey said. The association, however, is still confident that Diem’s ideals will continue to thrive even after Meta officially terminated its involvement in the project, the CEO noted: …

Meta-backed crypto initiative “Diem” is reportedly trying to sell its assets, seemingly calling time on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s grand ambitions for a stablecoin to act as the internet’s currency. Diem — which was previously known as Libra — is Meta Platform’s cryptocurrency initiative. According to insider sources speaking with Bloomberg, it is considering selling assets to return capital to its investors. The sources said that Diem is in discussions with investment bankers to determine the best way to sell its intellectual property and cash out on whatever value the project has maintained. It’s unclear how the company will be …

In his monthly crypto tech column, Israeli serial entrepreneur Ariel Shapira covers emerging technologies within the crypto, decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain space, as well as their roles in shaping the economy of the 21st century. Sometimes a project’s name tells you all you need to know about it, no matter how niche. Take Kryptomon, for example, the NFT game that recently completed a 24-hour sale in one second. You understand, based on its name, that some kinds of cutesy monstrosities evolving and fighting one another must be involved, and you know it must be blockchain-based. Clear, concise and to …

The stablecoin market has grown exponentially over the last few months due to the numerous advantages blockchain-based versions of fiat currencies have. But, when Facebook launched its cryptocurrency wallet Novi using Paxos’ stablecoin, some United States senators were quick to oppose it. Are they concerned about user data or monetary sovereignty? The social media giant which, according to its Q2 2021 report, has 2.9 billion monthly active users across all of its platforms, tapped Coinbase and Paxos for its Novi digital wallet project that kicked off its testing phase in the U.S. and Guatemala on Oct. 19. The pilot program …

The year 2021 seems to be a big year for the blockchain world as several projects, such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and centralized decentralized finance exchanges (CeDeFis), are taking the central stage. Also at the forefront is Facebook’s Libra. Not too long ago, the media was rife with the news that the world’s largest social media network was developing plans for a global digital currency. Then, after a while, it looked like Facebook shelved plans for it. Disputes with regulators around the globe had a hand in delaying and redirecting Facebook’s plans a bit. Instead of backing out, Facebook decided …

As Facebook now finalizes the development of its proprietary cryptocurrency wallet, Novi, the social media giant could soon be supporting nonfungible tokens (NFT). David Marcus, head of Facebook Financial and co-creator of Facebook-initiated cryptocurrency Diem, said Wednesday that the firm is “definitely looking” at possible ways to get involved in the NFT industry. Facebook is considering multiple options to introduce NFT features, as it finds itself in a “really good position to do so,” Marcus said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “When you have a good crypto wallet like Novi will be, you also have to think about how to …

In a newly published Medium piece titled "Good stablecoins, a protocol for money, and digital wallets: the formula to fix our broken payment system", Facebook’s crypto pioneer David Marcus shared his views on topics of economic inequality, regulatory challenges and Novi’s proposed stablecoin solution. Marcus has spent the last couple of years building Diem’s crypto wallet Novi — an interoperable digital wallet designed to integrate with the Diem payment system. It is meant to enable individuals and businesses worldwide to transfer money with ease, revolutionizing the age-old financial payments system once and for all. In the piece, Marcus cites the …

Can a stablecoin make Ethereum scalable? Crypto-backed stablecoin Free TON aspires to provide a layer-two solution for Ethereum’s scalability problems. With overloaded Ethereum increasingly choked by slow transaction speeds and widely overinflated gas prices, the Free TON stablecoin will be a “true layer-two solution with immense upside,” TON Labs added. “The application of Free TON’s second layer solution does much to remedy these problems. With the stablecoin, super cheap microtransactions can now be made and in a fraction of the time it would take on the original blockchain.” That in turn opens up a wide variety of new uses, ranging …