Facebook has been under the watchful eyes of regulatory bodies for a long time now. In the past, Mark Zuckerberg was seen defending Facebook’s privacy policy in front of the senate. Recently, Facebook came under scrutiny once more, this time in the context of its digital wallet ‘Novi’. An influential section of lawmakers in the United States believes that it is unsafe to let Facebook go ahead with its cryptocurrency plans. Four senators took an active part in making sure Facebook could not go ahead with its initiatives. Senators Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Brian Schatz, Tina Smith, and Richard Blumenthal wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, ordering him to stop the pilot of Novi. The letter also asked him to stop any active project on the Diem Stablecoins.
These events took place a few hours after Facebook made it official that their Novi wallet was ready for a pilot program. In the open letter, the senators said that it is not safe to trust Facebook with the sensitive information of millions of citizens.
It is not the first time that Facebook has been stopped by regulatory authorities in a cryptocurrency venture. Earlier, the Libra project from Facebook was similarly asked to shut down. The Libra project would have been a massive crypto venture if successfully carried out.
Facebook has previously been linked to multiple cases of sensitive information leak and comprising with users’ data. If Facebook is not allowed to move ahead with its Diem and Novi digital wallet plans, it might be the end of their crypto plans.
