Facebook says goodbye to its cryptocurrency with the sale of Diem for 200 million dollars

Facebook’s dreams of creating a cryptocurrency payment network are fading. The Diem Association is liquidating and selling its technology to a small California bank for about $200 million.

Founded in 2019 by Facebook, . Intense scrutiny from US regulators and the stampede flight of some of its founding members, including PayPal, Mastercard and Vodafone, made it decide to change course in 2020 to focus on launching a stablecoin backed one by one by the dollar.

The bank in question is Silvergate Capital, specialized in serving bitcoin and blockchain companies. According to the Financial Times, it is not the first agreement reached with the technological giant. Already at the time, it would have promised to issue the aforementioned stablecoin, in an attempt to appease regulators.

This decision is part of Meta’s strategy to seek new sources of income to finance its future growth. Also, the sale of Diem will allow the company to return part of the 10 million dollars that the founding members contributed. Recent scandals surrounding the negative impact of social media on mental health and privacy have hit the popularity of its platforms, a serious blow that threatens its advertising-based business model.

The scuffle between McDonalds and Musk gives rise to a new cryptocurrency

The exchange of tweets between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and McDonald’s this week has led to the creation of a new cryptocurrency, Grimace Coins, a digital currency based on a popular purple character from the chain’s ads. fast food.

I will eat a happy meal on tv if you accept Dogecoin

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

It all started as usual today, with a tweet from Musk. In that message, the SpaceX founder said he would eat a Happy Meal on TV if McDonald’s started accepting Dogecoin. In response, the fast food giant assured that he would do so if Tesla in turn accepted “grimacecoin” as a means of payment.

In the blink of an eye, at least ten “Grimace Coins” appeared on Binance, according to CoinDesk. One of them even had its own website in less than 24 hours. McDonald’s has dissociated itself from these cryptocurrencies.

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