David Marcus, who leads Facebook’s crypto unit Novi and its efforts to launch a digital currency known as Diem, is leaving the company later this year.
On his Facebook page and Twitter, the 48-year-old entrepreneur announced that Novi VP of product Stephane Kasriel will take over the leadership of the team.
“While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of hitting an important milestone with Novi launching — and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems — my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it,” Marcus added.
Commenting on this, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said, “We wouldn’t have taken such a big swing at Diem without your leadership and I’m grateful you’ve made Meta a place where we make those big bets.”
Other than Zuckerberg himself, Marcus has been the face of Facebook’s wallet and its long-delayed stablecoin since the company announced the two projects in 2019. Since then, he led efforts to spur support for Facebook’s cryptocurrency endeavors through introducing tremendous changes. Libra cryptocurrency rebranded as Diem, while Calibra wallet has become Novi.
The seasoned Facebook exec has originally joined the firm back in 2014 in charge of Messenger before moving on to focus on the company’s blockchain efforts and proposed cryptocurrency.
During his tenure, he was leading Facebook Financial which was formed in 2020 after months of regulatory pressure and financial partners bailing on the company’s cryptocurrency effort.
Marcus has recently stated that Facebook was getting closer to launching its Novi wallet, a move that would expose 2.9 billion users to digital currencies, possibly for the first time. It would then compete in a market dominated by the likes of Coinbase and Gemini, which operate crypto wallets for their traders.
Marcus said he prefers to introduce the Novi wallet together with Facebook’s stablecoin that would be tied to the US dollar.
Facebook Inc. and its partners were redesigning the proposed cryptocurrency to ensure that diem is not being built to compete with sovereign currencies or interfere with monetary policy. The changes are apparently an effort to woo reluctant global regulators and rebuild momentum for the plan.
Stephane Kasriel, a tech entrepreneur and former CEO at Upwork Inc., is now the one in charge of the troubled cryptocurrency project at Meta Platforms.
Despite scrutiny from legislators and regulatory bodies, Kasriel said he feels pretty committed to the launch of a digital wallet that would allow FB users to store cryptocurrencies,
