David Marcus, the former head of Meta's (META, Financial) Libra project (later renamed Diem), recently claimed that the initiative's failure of that project was largely because of political forces rather than regulatory obstacles.
In a post titled "How Libra Was Killed," Marcus claims that even with attempts to address issues of privacy, money laundering, and consumer protection, major figures within the US government killed the project. He accused Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen of pressuring Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose support for DIvisign Libra, Marcus said was told would be 'political suicide.' Marcus argues that this political wringing was sufficient to stop the project. However, the project complied with all the regulatory needs by 2021.
Libra, which was proposed in 2019, sought to develop a cryptocurrency-stable coin for the under-banked population of the world. Although it rapidly attracted many partners and users, the service was soon criticized by regulators and legislators who began putting pressure on it, and its partners, PayPal, Mastercard, and others, left. However, in early 2022, Meta sold the Libra project assets to Silvergate Bank for $182, and the project was finally shelved. Marcus's discoveries reveal that political forces influence the future of innovative technologies, which question the financial industry.
