Meta considers selling off Diem assets as Zuckerberg’s crypto ambitions crumble

Citing anonymous source, Bloomberg reports that The Diem Association is looking at selling its assets and intellectual property as a means to return capital to investors.

Originally planned as a global private cryptocurrency, the project was scaled back following political and regulatory pressure and a new idea floated, pegging a rebranded Diem token to the US dollar.

In May, Diem said an affiliate of the firm, Silvergate Bank, would be the one to issue the Diem USD stablecoin. However, the Federal Reserve threatened to ice Silvergate, effectively dealing a final blow to Meta’s ambitions.

The writing was already on the wall in December, when David Marcus quit as the boss of Meta’s fintech unit after leading a frustrating effort to launch the Novi digital wallet and its associated stablecoin.

According to Bloomberg, Diem is speaking with investment bankers on a fire sale of its assets and seeking to find new homes for the engineers who developed the tech.