When Facebook (later Meta) announced its ambitious Libra project in 2019, it was pitched as a groundbreaking effort to revolutionize the global financial system. Spearheaded by David Marcus, a former PayPal executive, the project aimed to create a blockchain-based digital currency that would facilitate real-time, low-cost international transactions. However, the project ultimately failed to launch, and Marcus later described it as a “political kill.”
The story of Libra—rebranded as Diem before its demise—illustrates the complex interplay of innovation, regulation, and public trust. Today, David Marcus pulled no punches explaining what happened via X.
A Bold Vision, Backed by Big Names
The Libra project was designed as a stablecoin, pegged to a basket of international currencies to minimize volatility. It aimed to provide the unbanked and underbanked populations with access to financial services through a digital wallet integrated with Facebook’s platforms. The project quickly gained significant backing, attracting major financial players like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal.
The idea was simple but transformative: imagine sending money across borders as quickly and easily as sending a text message. The initiative promised to reduce transaction fees, accelerate global commerce, and democratize access to financial systems.
The Regulatory Backlash
Despite its lofty goals, Libra encountered immediate and fierce resistance from governments and regulators worldwide. Critics argued that the project posed risks to monetary sovereignty, financial stability, and consumer protection. The prospect of Facebook—a company with a track record of mishandling user data—operating a global financial network was a red flag for regulators.
David Marcus testified before the U.S. Congress just weeks after the project’s announcement, facing bipartisan skepticism. Lawmakers questioned whether Facebook could be trusted to manage a currency and raised concerns about its potential to disrupt traditional banking systems and destabilize fiat currencies.
The international backlash was equally severe. European regulators were among the most vocal critics, with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stating that Libra could not be allowed to “become a sovereign currency.”
The Facebook Factor
The Libra project’s association with Facebook became both a blessing and a curse. While the company’s global reach and technical expertise were instrumental in developing the project, Facebook’s tarnished reputation, particularly in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, cast a long shadow.
Public and political trust in Facebook was at an all-time low, and the prospect of the tech giant having influence over a new global currency was unpalatable to many. This lack of trust led key partners, including Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal, to withdraw from the project in late 2019, citing regulatory uncertainty and reputational risks.
A Rebrand That Couldn’t Save the Project
In an effort to distance itself from the controversy, Libra was rebranded as Diem in December 2020. The project also relocated its operations to the United States to appease U.S. regulators and shifted its focus to launching a U.S.-dollar-pegged stablecoin.
Despite these changes, Diem continued to face insurmountable regulatory challenges. U.S. lawmakers remained unconvinced, and the Federal Reserve reportedly resisted approving the project. The Diem Association, the nonprofit entity overseeing the initiative, ultimately sold its assets in early 2022, marking the end of the ambitious endeavor.
Why Did Libra/Diem Fail?
David Marcus has been candid about why the project failed, calling it a “political kill.” He believes Libra was prematurely judged and stifled by regulatory fears of destabilizing existing financial systems. In Marcus’s view, the project’s ultimate failure was not due to technological or operational flaws but to the political and regulatory resistance it faced.
Source: X
Today on X, he wrote, “How Libra Was Killed. I never shared this publicly before, but since @pmarca opened the floodgates on @joerogan’s pod, it feels appropriate to shed more light on this. As a reminder, Libra (then Diem) was an advanced, high-performance, payments-centric blockchain paired with a stablecoin that we built with my team at @Meta. It would’ve solved global payments at scale. Prior to announcing the project, we spent months briefing key regulators in DC and abroad. We then announced the project in June 2019 alongside 28 companies. Two weeks later, I was called to testify in front of both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, which was the starting point of two years of nonstop work and changes to appease lawmakers and regulators.
By Spring of 2021 (yes they slow played us at every step), we had addressed every last possible regulatory concern across financial crime, money laundering, consumer protection, reserve management, buffers, and so much more, and we were ready to launch.
We had worked on a slow rollout of a limited pilot that some members of the Fed’s Board of Governors were supportive of. At last, Chair Jay Powell was ready to let us move forward in a limited way. The story, as I heard it, is that Jay Powell was told by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at one of their biweekly meetings that allowing this project to move forward was “political suicide,” and she would not have his back if he let it happen. I wasn’t in the room when this conversation happened, so take these words with a grain of salt, but effectively this was the moment Libra was killed.
Shortly thereafter, the Fed organized calls with all the participating banks, and the Fed’s general counsel read a prepared statement to each of them, saying: “We can’t stop you from moving forward and launching, but we are not comfortable with you doing so.” And just like that, it was over.
One essential point is worth making here. There was no legal or regulatory angle left for the government or regulators to kill the project. It was 100% a political kill—one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions.”
Lessons Learned
The rise and fall of Libra/Diem offer valuable lessons for the future of blockchain-based financial innovation. First, it underscores the importance of building trust with regulators and the public, especially for tech giants with controversial histories. Second, it highlights the need for startups and established players alike to navigate the political and regulatory landscapes with care and collaboration.
While Libra failed to achieve its vision, it sparked global conversations about the future of digital currencies and their role in reshaping the financial system. For Marcus, the dream of internet-native money may have been deferred, but the questions it raised about accessibility, efficiency, and sovereignty remain as relevant as ever.
And as he wrote on X, “The bright side of the story, though, was the many learnings from this wild ride. By the end of the project, we had made so many concessions to get a thumbs-up that the whole design of the network became a Frankenstein of our initial ambitions. We also learned the biggest lesson of all, which is that if you’re trying to build an open money grid for the world—eventually moving trillions of dollars a day, designed to be here 100 years from now—you have to build it on the most neutral, decentralized, unassailable network and asset, which, hands down, is Bitcoin.”
