Traditionally, we’ll start with an explanation. Libra is Facebook’s Stablecoin project, that is, a cryptocurrency with a link to the value of the dollar. The project’s Whitepaper was published in June 2019, and at first, its development prospects seemed quite confident. In particular, immediately after the launch, it became known that there was a pool of supporting companies, which included Mastercard, PayPal, Visa, Stripe, eBay and Coinbase.

However, after some time, the project came under the scrutiny of regulators. As a result, it became clear as early as October 2019 that a product release might not be forthcoming. This was particularly evident when various giants began to leave the Libra association, essentially turning their backs on the project.

Mark Zuckerberg and Libra

That said, Facebook’s management did make attempts to keep Libra alive. For example, in May 2020, it became known that it was rebranding the project and promising to integrate it into WhatsApp. Read more about this in a separate piece.

What about Facebook’s cryptocurrency

Such an announcement sounds more like an admission of defeat, but cryptocurrency enthusiasts still found some interesting lines in the announcement itself. They were published by the news publication Decrypt. Here is the relevant quote.

In this effort, we actively sought feedback from governments and regulators around the world, and the project has evolved and improved significantly as a result. In the United States, a high-ranking regulator told us that Diem was the most thoughtful Stablecoin project the US government had ever seen.

It’s likely that the “top regulator” is the US Securities and Exchange Commission

It’s an interesting statement, given that regulatory opposition is seen as the main reason for Diem’s “demise”. And this is not the first time project representatives have voiced such a claim. For example, the following statement can be found in the October public response to a congressional letter of concern about the start-up’s prospects.

In addition to complying with financial crime requirements, we actively engaged with the inter-agency regulatory group about the project’s infrastructure. As part of this, we made adjustments to take into account the feedback we received. We were told by the chief regulator that Diem was the steiblocoin project with the best design the US government had ever seen.


Accordingly, the developers made it clear that they were actively engaging with the authorities to address the issues. In the end, however, communication with regulators ended up going nowhere. Although the project earned praise from them, users will definitely not be able to wait for the launch of the project - at least not in the form originally planned.


Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of taking over the world with his own currency will not come true

Several conclusions can be drawn from the event. First, Silvergate is likely to launch its own stablecoin under a different brand. Secondly, Diem’s work will not disappear, although the former Facebook will now have nothing to do with it. Moreover, given the high level of interest of the bank’s management in the project, the idea of developing a stabelcoin market could gain a lot of traction.


We believe that the Libra project in its original form was inherently doomed to success. After all, Facebook has too big an audience, so the success of the new digital currency could really shake the dollar's reputation and its role in international transactions. So now Libra has joined the TON, which also faced resistance from US regulators in its initial form. In the end, though, the project survived and can now be mined quite profitably.


What will it be like? Stay tuned to our millionaires cryptochat. There we will talk about other topics that affect the digital asset industry.