It appears that the consequences of the crypto crisis are also being felt by one of the largest tech businesses in the world. Novi, a bitcoin digital wallet that Meta introduced in 2021, is nearing the end of its life. Users have till September 1 to remove their information and any remaining cryptocurrency balance from the Novi website. This extinguishes the last, tiny flickering light from Meta's crypto initiatives over the previous few years, as CNBC noted.
Simply put, Novi was designed to be a secure mechanism for users to transmit and receive cryptocurrency, and at one point it was designed to support Diem, the Facebook-backed cryptocurrency that first launched in 2019 under the name Libra before changing its name later. Due to Diem's collapse in February of this year, that never truly occurred.
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Novi had no chance without even the power to print money produced by its own parent firm. The website was never even upgraded from beta to 1.0. Regardless of how optimistic Mark Zuckerberg and company were (and may still be, in private) about cryptocurrencies, it appears the concept of a decentralized blockchain currency no longer has a home inside Meta's office walls.
If you haven't been living under a rock, 2022 has seen a severe drop in the cryptocurrency market. Even the cryptocurrency news website Coindesk acknowledged that although it has happened before, this time feels different. It appears that the current state of COVID, war, inflation, and everything else has made it much more difficult for the digital dollar dream to survive. Perhaps this will turn out for the best in the long run, especially for those who have lost their jobs as a result of the current economic climate.
John Carter has been a content and ‘ghostwriter' for many popular online publications over the years. John is now our chief editor at NewsGrab.
