US lawmaker probing Meta’s involvement with digital assets, blockchain tech

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, rating member of the Monetary Products and services Committee, has initiated an investigation into Meta’s involvement with digital resources over financial stability concerns.

Waters wrote a letter to high Meta executives Designate Zuckerberg and Javier Olivan on Jan. 22, highlighting a series of trademark applications that counsel a attainable expansion into digital forex and blockchain abilities, raising questions relating to the firm’s intentions and actions on this domain.

She has requested clarification on Meta’s intentions relating to web3, digital wallets, and completely different linked projects. These inquiries goal to ascertain the extent of Meta’s ongoing and future involvement in digital resources, including any likely analysis and pattern in stablecoin projects or partnerships with completely different stablecoin issuers.

Waters has prolonged been a critic of the crypto industry and believes that the field need to aloof be area to the an analogous stringent regulations as banks, in particular stablecoin issuers.

Trademark applications

The 5 trademark applications — filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Build of residing of job (USPTO) in 2022 — quilt a wide differ of services and products linked to digital resources. The applications embody a diverse differ of services and products, from on-line social networking and relationship services and products tailored for patrons to downloadable tool for digital forex administration.

The applications also consist of provisions for varied digital asset actions ranging from financial trades and exchanges of completely different kinds of digital forex to the invent and pattern of blockchain-linked laptop hardware and tool.

The submissions salvage raised concerns, in particular given Meta’s past ventures into digital forex and the next regulatory and public scrutiny.

Despite these filings, Meta workers asserted in October 2023 that the firm is neither conducting nor planning any work on blockchain-primarily based completely merchandise or stablecoins. On the assorted hand, the assertion contradicts the detailed descriptions in Meta’s trademark applications.

Letter requests

The USPTO route of requires that, following the issuance of a Thought of Allowance (NOA), candidates need to file a Assertion of Spend or an Extension Quiz of inner six months. This route of is valuable for asserting the validity of the trademark application and its associated goods and services and products.

Waters wondered whether or no longer Meta would file a Assertion of Spend or an Extension Quiz of for their contemporary trademark applications and sought particulars on the extent of Meta’s analysis and pattern in stablecoin projects, partnerships, and the adoption of dispensed ledger abilities in its platforms.

Furthermore, she asked if Meta intends to launch a cryptocurrency payments platform and how its abilities facilitates completely different aspects of cryptocurrency handling, in particular in its Metaverse platform.

Waters’ letter pointed to Meta’s past endeavors within the digital forex realm, in particular the pattern of the Libra (later rebranded as Diem) cryptocurrency mission, as a worth of the firm’s digital asset ambitions.

The Libra/Diem mission used to be met with valuable opposition from regulators and policymakers due to concerns about privateness, nationwide security, and the likely affect on global financial techniques. Meta at final sold it off amid the backlash.

Meta’s response to these inquiries will be closely watched, as it would possibly actually presumably well considerably affect the regulatory landscape surrounding digital currencies and blockchain abilities. The firm’s actions and solutions on this evolving self-discipline dwell some degree of alive to ardour and scrutiny amongst policymakers and industry observers.