Social Media Giant Meta Turns to Crypto: New Era After Failed Coin! - Coin Bulletin

According to Fortune, tech giant Meta is working on stablecoin integration to solve the cost issue in cross-border payments.

Social media giant Meta is stepping back into the stablecoin world after shelving its crypto project years ago. According to a report by Fortune based on five different sources, Meta is considering the use of stablecoin to reduce the costs of payments made through Instagram.

While it remains uncertain which stablecoin the company will focus on, it is observed that Meta has taken significant steps in this area. The company, which hired Ginger Baker, a former Ripple executive and currently a board member of the Stellar Development Foundation, as the product vice president, has also reached out to various crypto infrastructure companies to reduce the fees for cross-border payments.

The changing climate after Trump

Meta's renewed interest in stablecoin integration coincides with a period when regulatory agencies in the U.S. adopted a more friendly approach towards cryptocurrencies following President Trump's inauguration. Large tech companies, banks, and stablecoin providers are in competition over how stablecoin regulations will take shape in the U.S.

As of May 8, the total stablecoin supply in the market is at a level of 232.14 billion dollars. This supply is largely composed of Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC stablecoins.

Meta's past crypto venture

Meta, then known as Facebook, launched the Libra project in 2019 as a dollar-based digital asset supported by a basket of fiat currencies. The company planned to launch the stablecoin in January 2021, but these plans fell through due to regulatory pressures. Libra was later rebranded as Diem in December 2020 to shed its negative reputation.

The Diem section closed and its intellectual property was sold to the now-bankrupt SilverGate.io Bank. However, the project continues to live on in new blockchains like Aptos, Movement, and Sei that use Diem's proprietary MOVE programming language without Meta's involvement.

Meta has not completely lost its interest in the crypto space over the years. The company filed trademark applications for projects related to digital assets such as crypto trading, blockchain-focused hardware, and digital asset exchange services in 2022 and 2023.