Jack Dorsey Says Meta Should Have Focussed Its Diem Project Towards Bitcoin Instead of a Stablecoin

Dorsey says Meta was too focussed on driving people to its own suite of products such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

By Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee | Updated: 2 February 2022 12:41 IST

Jack Dorsey Says Meta Should Have Focussed Its Diem Project Towards Bitcoin Instead of a Stablecoin

Photo Credit: Reuters

MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor interviewed Jack Dorsey about Bitcoin.

Highlights

Meta's Diem project was recently sold for roughly $200 million
Dorsey spoke to MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor in an interview
Meta started the Diem project back in 2019

Facebook-parent Meta recently called it quits for its long-running stablecoin project Diem and Block's Jack Dorsey isn't mincing words in calling the company out for not trying to focus on the Bitcoin ecosystem instead. The Twitter founder and Bitcoin evangelist believes that Meta's Mark Zuckerberg should not have spent so much effort in creating a new stablecoin. Dorsey believes that the company would have been better off had they focused on improving the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Dorsey, speaking at the MicroStrategy World Conference with Michael Saylor said that Meta's approach to Diem wasn't open enough. He further criticises the company for putting too much focus on driving people to its own suite of products.

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“They tried to create a currency that was owned by Facebook — probably for the right reasons, probably for noble reasons — but there were also some reasons that would indicate trying to get more and more people onto the Facebook ecosystem. They did that instead of using an open protocol and standard like Bitcoin," Dorsey said.

"Hopefully they learned a lot, but I think there was a lot of wasted effort and time. Those two years or three years, or however long it's been, could have been spent making Bitcoin more accessible for more people around the world, which would also benefit their Messenger product and Instagram and WhatsApp,” the former Twitter CEO added.

Jack Dorsey is a vocal fan of Bitcoin and has been working on ways to improve the ecosystem. Dorsey's payment company Block is currently working on affordable and easily accessible Bitcoin wallets along with creating affordable hardware for Bitcoin miners.

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As per the recent development, crypto-focussed Silvergate bank shall be acquiring Meta's Diem Assets for a reported bid of around $200 million (roughly Rs. 1,500 crore). This will mark the end of Diem's three-year efforts that started around June 2019. Meta's long-going regulatory discussions didn't turn out to be in favour of the company, however, it is left to be seen if the end of Meta's crypto pursuit.

Meanwhile, Michael Saylor led MicroStrategy into propelling Bitcoin into the limelight in 2020 — which, in turn, helped to elevate the asset's price — when the company started buying Bitcoin as part of an investment strategy. The company now owns 124,391 Bitcoins, or $4.7 billion (roughly Rs. 35,170 crore) worth of it.

Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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