Meta Platforms has told users of Novi to withdraw their funds on the platform as soon as possible
The company behind social media platforms like Facebook And Instagram, Meta Platforms Inc. announced on Friday that the company’s crypto pilot project dubbed as Novi is to end soon. As per the website, Novi project will not be available for use after 1 September.
Meta explained in its announcement on Friday that from 21st July, users on the Novi’s platform will not be able to add funds anymore to their accounts on the project. On top of that, both the application of Novi and its version on Whatsapp, will not be available and so users will then no longer be able to reach or log in to their Novi accounts.
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So, the company has also told users on Novi platform to withdraw their remaining funds on the platform as Novi balances as soon as possible, before the deadline of 1st September. However, if users do not remove their funds then the remaining funds after the date will be allocated to those bank accounts that are listed with their Novi accounts.
According to its official website, Novi is primarily a digital wallet system that enables users to instantly transfer money while not charging fees in cryptocurrency. Meta Platforms had launched a beta version of Novi digital wallet in October last year while Coinbase acted as its custody partner.
Account balances on Novi accounts are kept in Paxos Trust Company’s stablecoin USDP, which is a regulated asset. Meta had planned to use its own cryptocurrency known as Diem, which was earlier known as Libra, for the same service. But due to getting stuck in a number of regulatory issues that became harder to face eventually and at the end, Meta dropped the project itself.
Later in January, Silvergate Capital came forward and acquired the infrastructure of the failed project including its intellectual property and other technology assets that would support the payment network based on blockchain belonging to Diem Group.
It has been seen lately that Meta has been increasing its Metavere related business, as last week itself, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company is aiming to bring billions of people who will use the metaverse that will eventually generate significant revenue for Meta Platforms (former Facebook). On 22nd June, CEO Zuckerberg also announced the rebranding of Facebook Pay to Meta Pay. Along with this, he also revealed a digital payment wallet for metaverse.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/07/03/why-metas-crypto-project-novi-is-now-coming-to-an-end/