Mark Zuckerberg's ambitious crypto project, Diem, has officially come to an end.
The Diem Association confirmed that the selling of it intellectual property and other assets to Silvergate Capital Corp., the bank that had previously partnered with the group.
The cryptocurrency initiative, previously known as the Libra Association, had reportedly hoped to launch its stablecoin last January. However, the group kept facing challenges and hurdles from regulators and lawmakers around the world for over two years.
"The Diem journey has been an ambitious and challenging one to date," Meta's head of Novi (Facebook’s cryptocurrency wallet), Stephane Kasriel wrote on Twitter.
In a statement, the group's CEO Stuart Levey pointed fingers at US regulators for Diem’s collapse, and defended the group’s work to minimize risk with “industry-leading controls to protect consumers and combat financial crime.”
“Despite giving us positive substantive feedback on the design of the network, it nevertheless became clear from our dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead,” Levey. “As a result, the best path forward was to sell the Diem Group's assets, as we have done today to Silvergate.”
