Facebook’s Head of Crypto Quits Weeks After Meta Rebranding

Facebook, now known as Meta, has only begun its development, post the commencement of the company’s rebranding. However, shockingly, one of the core team members, i.e., the head executive of the cryptocurrency department, David Marcus has announced his departure from the company by the end of this month.

Marcus took to Twitter yesterday, unveiling the end of his seven-year long tenure at Meta. The market is raging with speculations that Marcus’ exit is because of Meta’s Hit-and-Miss, to launch its own cryptocurrency for cross border online payments via Facebook products.

Personal news: after a fulfilling seven years at Meta, I’ve made the difficult decision to step down and leave the company at the end of this year. (1/7)

— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) November 30, 2021

Did Crypto Executive Quit in lieu of Failure to Launch Native Crypto?

After serving as PayPal’s President, Marcus joined Meta in 2014. He worked at Meta’s popular online messaging application, Messenger, and eventually moved on to the financial department of the company. Under Marcus’ leadership, Meta announced two cryptocurrencies one after another. Both, the Libra blockchain currency and the Calibra digital wallet were expected to go live in the year 2020. However, neither succeeded in lieu of global backlash from policymakers and regulators. At present, Meta’s digital currency Diem, is run by an independent entity, separate from its digital wallet project, Novi. Furthermore, currently serving as the VP of product at Novi, Stephane Kasriel, will now be replacing Marcus as the head of crypto at Meta.

“While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of launching Novi — 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…I find comfort and confidence in knowing that they will continue to execute our important mission well under @skasriel’s leadership, and I can’t wait to witness this from the outside.”, Marcus tweeted in the thread containing his exit from Meta announcement. 

Towards the end of October, Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform, confirmed rebranding after changing its name to Meta. The name change was in line with the company’s focus on building the world’s first true metaverse.