Novi, the stablecoin wallet from Meta, is to be closed on September 1, according to an announcement on the Novi website. Meta originally set up Novi as a wallet to support the Diem stablecoin network, which was shut down in January this year with the assets sold to Silvergate Bank.
Last October, after numerous delays in getting regulatory approval for the Diem stablecoin, Novi launched a pilot for payments between the United States and Guatemala using the Paxos dollar stablecoin. It is this pilot that is now being shuttered. Originally the plan was to switch from Paxos dollar to Diem once it was approved. But eventually, Diem realized that regulatory approval was never going to happen.
The writing was on the wall with the departure of David Marcus, the leader of Novi and co-founder of Diem. He has since set up a new digital payments venture and recently spoke about politics and regulation.
Even if Novi’s technology is used in future in other solutions, Meta will want to distance itself from the government pushback around Diem and Novi’s association with it. The company recently spoke about enabling metaverse payment tokens without blockchain.
Last week, Meta rebranded its existing payment app Facebook Pay as Meta Pay.
Meanwhile, back in March, Meta announced it planned to launch non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Instagram, and ten days ago said it is expanding that test to include more creators and countries. Its planning to enable NFTs to be shared on Facebook soon.
