Facebook’s Marcus hopes Diem will launch next year

David Marcus, head of Facebook Financial, has said he hopes both the cryptocurrency known as Diem and the social media firm’s wallet Novi will launch in 2021.

Speaking at the Singapore FinTech Festival, Marcus said he hopes Facebook will be given the “benefit of the doubt” by regulators.

The Financial Times recently reported that Diem could go live in a limited capacity as early as January.

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Diem is the new name of the project formerly known as Libra, a proposed stablecoin led by Facebook with the support of 26 other companies. The association announced its rebrand last week.

When first unveiled by Facebook in June 2019, Libra was met with a chorus of disapproval from regulators around the world.

The association has since made various tweaks to the vision it had initially outlined, and applied for a payment system licence from FINMA, the Swiss regulator, in April 2020.

On announcing the rebrand last week, Diem said that it would proceed “only upon receiving regulatory approval, including a payment systems license for the operational subsidiary of the Association from FINMA”.

About Author

Ryan Weeks is deals editor at the The Block, focused on fundraising, M&A and institutional trends in the crypto space, among other things. He is particularly interested in investigative work — so please send tips! Ryan previously worked at Financial News, Dow Jones as a fintech correspondent in London. Prior to that, he wrote for several different publications, including Sifted, AltFi and Wired. Beyond journalism, Ryan is a keen reader and writer. He enjoys all things active, especially running, rugby, climbing and tennis.