Meta’s Crypto Project Libra Victim of ‘Political Kill,’ Says Co-Creator David Marcus
The co-creator of Meta’s ill-fated crypto payment project Libra says a political hit job stymied their efforts. David Marcus says Libra, later renamed Diem, would have “solved global payments at scale.” The tech executive notes his team spent months briefing “key regulators” in the US and abroad prior to announcing the project in June 2019 alongside 28 other companies. “Two weeks later, I was called to testify in front of both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, which was the starting point of two years of nonstop work and changes to appease lawmakers and regulators. By spring of 2021 (yes they slow-played us at every step), we had addressed every last possible regulatory concern across financial crime, money laundering, consumer protection, reserve management, buffers, and so much more, and we were ready to launch. We had worked on a slow rollout of a limited pilot that some members of the...