Meta’s first foray into cryptocurrencies is set to end in September with the incursion of its Novi pilot project, reported by Cointelegraph. As per the news report, Novi’s website landing page was refurbished to tell users that the platform will be decommissioned on September 1, 2022. With this, the eight-month-long pilot project has come to an end.
Novi users have been informed to download their account information before the end date, including transactions and activities on their accounts. The functions will be disabled from September 1 and users will not be able to log into their wallets. The platform will discontinue deposits to Novi wallets from July 21.
The shutdown of the pilot project follows just five months after Meta’s stablecoin project Deim was sold to Silvergate capital corporation. It is believed that Diem was set to be the stablecoin to power the Meta ecosystem and was initially intended to be the native currency of the wallet.
Coinbase teamed up with Novi as its custody partner to manage and store user funds. Meta had earlier planned to migrate the Novi platform to the Diem blockchain ecosystem once it had attained regulatory approval.
The pilot project ended immediately after Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the change of Facebook pay to Meta pay via his Facebook profile on this June 22. Facebook’s parent company rebranded to Meta while the Diem ecosystem also rebranded debacle from Liba following massive pushback from regulators around the globe.