Meta expands openness to Facebook cryptocurrency ads, head of Facebook coin steps down

Facebook announced its foray into the metaverse after rebranding to Meta. Recently, there have been two changes related to cryptocurrency: David Marcus, the head of Facebook's Diem Libra project, stepped down, and Facebook expanded its cryptocurrency advertising policy.

Facebook's Cryptocurrency Veteran Steps Down

In June 2019, Facebook unveiled its cryptocurrency project "Libra" for the first time. Due to concerns over monopoly, privacy, and economic stability, it faced scrutiny from regulators and society. In April 2020, Libra introduced its second version of the whitepaper, significantly increasing its regulatory compliance. Later, it even rebranded to "Diem" in an attempt to distance itself from its negative image. Until 2021, the Facebook coin has yet to materialize, with David Marcus being involved as the lead.

On December 1st, David Marcus announced his resignation. In his post on Facebook, he stated that after seven years at Meta, the new company name for Facebook, he reluctantly announced his departure, having achieved a milestone with the rebranding of Novi, the Facebook coin wallet, to Calibra. He will be passing the baton to Stephane Kasriel, former CEO of Upwork, who joined Facebook's payment business unit F2 in 2020.

Although Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg mentioned blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFTs in his vision of the metaverse, there was no mention of Diem and Novi. Currently, the focus seems to be more on the development of VR social applications:

Relaxing Restrictions on Cryptocurrency Advertising

According to Facebook's announcement, advertising policies will be relaxed to make it easier for people to advertise cryptocurrency-related content. The reason cited is that cryptocurrencies have matured and stabilized in recent years, and more governments have established clearer regulations for the industry.

In Taiwan, many unauthorized businesses have been advertising on Facebook through written applications or other means. Since Taiwan does not have clear regulatory licenses, it is not exempt from the policy.

The updated rules are as follows:

Not allowed, requires prior written approval-

• Cryptocurrency exchanges or trading platforms, apps, or products. Including but not limited to: spot trading, margin trading, futures trading, and other trading tools involving cryptocurrencies.
• Cryptocurrency exchanges or trading platforms, apps, or products that provide cryptocurrency lending services
• Wallets that allow buying, selling, exchanging, or pledging cryptocurrencies
• Hardware or software for cryptocurrency mining
• Other product advertisements such as blockchain technology, cryptocurrency industry news, education, events, additional services, payment methods, and merchants

Allowed after approval-

• Tax services for cryptocurrency companies
• Activities, education, and news that do not involve cryptocurrency products and services
• Blockchain technology news
• Blockchain services and products that do not involve virtual currencies, such as NFTs
• Cryptocurrency wallets without buying, selling, exchanging, or pledging functions

Allowed-

Units in the following countries with regulatory licenses are also allowed to advertise, detailed licenses can be found in the announcement: Australia, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, UAE, USA