David Marcus, Meta The CEO tasked with launching his stuttering digital currency project has announced that he will be leaving the company at the end of the year.
The departure comes after Meta, the parent company of Facebook, suffered a string of failures in its launch efforts electronic money products, including the new digital token, Diem.
In one a bunch of tweets posted on Tuesday morning, Marcus said he plans to launch something new outside of the social media giant and that his “entrepreneurial DNA has urged me on too many mornings in a row to keep going.” continue to ignore it”.
The 48-year-old has been with Meta for seven years and before that was head of Facebook Messenger. He joined the company from PayPal. In August 2020, Marcus was appointed director of Facebook Financial, a new unit designed to oversee all of the company’s payments products.
Marcus said he finds “comfort and confidence” in his former team-to-be, which will now be led by Stephane Kasriel, now product manager of Meta digital wallet, Novi.
“They will continue to do well on our important mission under @skasriel’s leadership and I can’t wait to see this from the outside,” Marcus wrote. “I know there’s greatness ahead.”
Responding on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg said: “We wouldn’t have taken such a big blow to Mr. Diem without your leadership and I’m grateful that you made Meta the place where we bet. so big”.
Meta declined to comment.
Diem, first announced in 2019 as Libra, immediately caught the attention of financial regulators and politicians concerned about the broad issues associated with cryptocurrencies. , such as money laundering. It comes amid the Cambridge Analytica scandal and other privacy blunders.
The project’s early backers, including Mastercard and PayPal, abandoned the initiative as regulatory pressure mounted.
In May, the Diem Association – an independent body set up to regulate the currency – said it would significantly narrows its scope, rejected its application to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority to operate as a global payments service and focus instead on the United States.
Novi, Meta digital wallet, was launched for small-scale testing in October, but will initially use a different coin – the Paxos Dollar – instead of the Diem. It is available to a limited number of people in the United States and Guatemala.
A group of Democratic senators opposes Novi’s launch, writing in a letter to Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg: “Facebook cannot be trusted to regulate payment systems or digital currencies number when its existing ability to manage risk and keep consumers safe has been proven insufficient. ”
Marcus’ unit also faces pushback for non-crypto payment products. Last year, regulators in Brazil ordered Meta to suspend payments on messaging platform WhatsApp over fears it would disrupt the country’s existing financial system. Brazil’s central bank has since approved.
In India, the number of users allowed to access WhatsApp payments has been limited by the government.
Kasriel, who joined the company last August, was previously the chief executive officer of Upwork, a marketplace for freelancers.
Kasriel tweeted: “I am honored to have the opportunity to lead the amazing Novi team and look forward to continuing to build products and services that enable people and businesses to gain greater access to the financial system and digital economy. digital.”
