Congresswoman Maxine Waters, rating member of the Monetary Companies Committee, has initiated an investigation into Meta’s involvement with digital belongings over monetary stability considerations.
Waters wrote a letter to high Meta executives Mark Zuckerberg and Javier Olivan on Jan. 22, highlighting a sequence of trademark functions that counsel a possible enlargement into digital forex and blockchain know-how, elevating questions in regards to the firm’s intentions and actions on this area.
She has requested clarification on Meta’s intentions concerning web3, digital wallets, and different associated initiatives. These inquiries goal to establish the extent of Meta’s ongoing and future involvement in digital belongings, together with any potential analysis and growth in stablecoin initiatives or partnerships with different stablecoin issuers.
Waters has lengthy been a critic of the crypto trade and believes that the sector ought to be topic to the identical stringent rules as banks, particularly stablecoin issuers.
Trademark functions
The 5 trademark functions — filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) in 2022 — cowl a big selection of companies associated to digital belongings. The functions embody a various vary of companies, from on-line social networking and relationship companies tailor-made for buyers to downloadable software program for digital forex administration.
The functions additionally embody provisions for varied digital asset actions starting from monetary trades and exchanges of assorted types of digital forex to the design and growth of blockchain-related laptop {hardware} and software program.
The submissions have raised considerations, significantly given Meta’s previous ventures into digital forex and the following regulatory and public scrutiny.
Regardless of these filings, Meta employees asserted in October 2023 that the corporate is neither conducting nor planning any work on blockchain-based merchandise or stablecoins. Nevertheless, the assertion contradicts the detailed descriptions in Meta’s trademark functions.
Letter requests
The USPTO course of requires that, following the issuance of a Discover of Allowance (NOA), candidates should file a Assertion of Use or an Extension Request inside six months. This process is essential for sustaining the validity of the trademark software and its related items and companies.
Waters questioned whether or not Meta would file a Assertion of Use or an Extension Request for his or her latest trademark functions and sought particulars on the extent of Meta’s analysis and growth in stablecoin initiatives, partnerships, and the adoption of distributed ledger know-how in its platforms.
Moreover, she requested if Meta intends to launch a cryptocurrency funds platform and the way its know-how facilitates varied facets of cryptocurrency dealing with, significantly in its Metaverse platform.
Waters’ letter pointed to Meta’s previous endeavors within the digital forex realm, significantly the event of the Libra (later rebranded as Diem) cryptocurrency venture, as a sign of the corporate’s digital asset ambitions.
The Libra/Diem venture was met with vital opposition from regulators and policymakers attributable to considerations about privateness, nationwide safety, and the potential impression on world monetary methods. Meta ultimately offered it off amid the backlash.
Meta’s response to those inquiries might be intently watched, because it might considerably impression the regulatory panorama surrounding digital currencies and blockchain know-how. The corporate’s actions and techniques on this evolving discipline stay some extent of eager curiosity and scrutiny amongst policymakers and trade observers.
