Facebook’s Diem is close to launching, with the project’s pre-sale website announcing a pre-sale discount for early investors. The process of launching the digital currency has seen many bumps on the road, not least of which was its early re-branding from Libra to Diem and backlash from regulators and lawmakers.
Diem’s presale marks a stage in its journey that many people thought would never come. Evolving from its early days as Libra, the Facebook digital currency is now owned by an association of 26 financial companies and has distanced itself from its initial Facebook branded digital currency.
In 2020 a rebrand of Libra was announced, with the company announcing that its hopes for the new Diem digital currency were for a complete rebranding that would no longer associate it with the Libra and the regulatory controversy that followed it.
With the US congress not looking upon Libra favourably, the rebranding and new ownership by a conglomerate of 26 financial companies, has taken away some of the opposition to the new stablecoin. This is in part due to the fact that Facebook has taken a few steps away from the project, and also due to the fact that Diem stated that they would phase out the digital currency as soon as a Federal Reserve central bank digital currency comes out. This cosying up to regulators means that rather than being a direct competitor, Diem will withdraw the stablecoin as soon as the “fed coin” comes into being.
Facebook’s poor history with privacy led to much of the controversy surrounding the ‘privacy-focused’ currency, which as a digital currency would be expected to maintain strict privacy parameters.
Christian Catalini, Chief Economist of Diem commented on the role that privacy will have in the new Diem stablecoin:
“This is a technology that is innovating on the privacy landscape when it comes to selective disclosure and what you can really do with it,” And “Diem is going to be privacy by design, and we also want to encourage privacy as a dimension of competition on the network.”
The ongoing pre-sale will set the tone of the future of Diem, and while the digital currency hasn’t received a great deal of support from regulatory bodies and even the crypto community, there is no denying the huge influence that a body such as Facebook holds over the masses.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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