Meta will close its pilot of the Novi digital wallet, one of the last remnants of the company’s besieged cryptocurrency push, in September, Bloomberg reported this week.
Novi users in parts of the US and Guatemala will no longer be able to log in as of September 1st.
And as of July 21, they will not be able to add to their wallets. In fact, the Novi website encourages users to clear their accounts “as soon as possible”. Novi says that it will “try to transfer your balance to the bank account or debit card you have added to Novi” if you still have money in your account after the pilot ends.
The pilot for Novia, originally known as Calibra, was launched in October, but Meta was already turning away from its crypto dreams, which at the height included the company’s own stack coin, Diem, formerly known as Libra. Novia launches with Paxos Trust Co. its USDP stablecoin instead. It also had some integration with WhatsApp.
But last year, the head of the project, David Marcus, left Meta. And in January, we described the fall to Meta’s ambitions for cryptocurrency, signaled by the company selling off its assets (mostly intellectual property) and repaying investors.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his crypto hopes in 2019, with dreams of using crypto for simple transactions in WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. But despite large investments, US regulators’ concerns about distribution, network policing and fears of over-concentrated economic power derailed member companies Meta’s plans. Finally, it became unclear whether the Federal Reserve would allow the project’s bank to issue stablecoin.
Although Novi is soon dead, Meta insists that the technologies of the cryptocurrency wallet are not. Despite skepticism about non-fungible tokens – related to their necessity, reputation and value (the largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, fell 85 percent in the first half of 2022, according to the Financial Times) – Meta Novi leverages technology for other metavers. y projects, including building Meta’s capabilities around blockchain and “digital collectibles,” a company representative told Bloomberg.
“You can expect to see more from us in the web3 site because we are very optimistic about the value these technologies can add to people and businesses in the metaverse,” said the representative.
Meta is already testing NFTs on Instagram as an alleged way for creators to make money. In late June, Zuckerberg said the company will bring this test to Facebook “soon.”
