Meta Platforms Inc. Stop Novi Digital Wallet Project, Considered Failed And Troubled

Meta choose stop Novi digital wallet project. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Meta Platform Inc., has finally ended the trial of the Novi project, the company's digital wallet and the final part of its troubled cryptocurrency project. This certainty appears in the news reported by Bloomberg.

On the Novi website, Meta says the wallet will close on September 1, 2022, and asks users to withdraw their funds "as soon as possible."

Users will lose access to their accounts in September, and will no longer be able to add money to Novi starting July 21. If someone forgets to withdraw their remaining balance, Meta says it will "try to transfer" their funds to a bank account or debit card added to the service.

Meta launched Novi's "little pilot" to users in the US and Guatemala last October. Novi was originally built to support fast and free transactions using the Meta-backed cryptocurrency, Diem. However, regulatory challenges forced the company to partner with Coinbase to use stablecoin (USDP) Paxos instead.

While Meta explained that they are still planning to add support for Diem at a later date, issues have emerged that are starting to fall apart in late 2021 and into 2022.

Before Facebook's parent company was known as Meta, Diem was also known by another name: Libra. The cryptocurrency project is facing scrutiny over its ties to Facebook, so much so that the independent group behind Libra renamed the project Diem in a bid to distance itself from the social network.

Members of the US Senate asked Meta to shut down the Novi project shortly after its October 2021 launch, arguing that the company “cannot be trusted to manage cryptocurrencies.” David Marcus, head of the cryptocurrency project Meta, left the company one month later. Diem sold his assets for about $200 million earlier this year, marking the end of the project.

The end of Diem doesn't mean that Meta threw out the idea of developing its own digital asset and accompanying wallet. Meta spokeswoman Lauren Dickson said in an emailed statement to The Verge that Meta will leverage the technology it develops in conjunction with projects "on new products, such as digital collections," as it looks toward "building a metaverse."

Meta has started testing NFT (non-fungible tokens) on Instagram and recently rolled out support for NFT on Facebook for select US-based content creators. The company is also reportedly working on a digital currency, called “Zuck Bucks,” which is not based on blockchain.

Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also hinted at creating a digital wallet that could help users manage and store "digital clothes, art, videos, music, experiences, virtual events and more."

The wallet will be interoperable across different metaverse experiences, reflecting the goals of the Metaverse Standards Forum set up by Meta and a group of other companies, which calls for industry standards across virtual reality and augmented reality experiences.