Dorsey says Zuckerberg should have focused on Bitcoin, not Diem

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(Bloomberg) – Block Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey has criticized the failure of Meta Platforms Inc.’s cryptocurrency project Diem, saying the company’s time could have been better spent advancing Bitcoin.

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Dorsey said Tuesday that Meta’s approach to Diem, a proposed cryptocurrency formerly known as Libra that ended unceremoniously this week, was not open enough. Instead, Dorsey says Meta was too focused on driving people to its own suite of products, like WhatsApp and Instagram.

“They tried to create a currency that belonged to Facebook – probably for the right reasons, probably for noble reasons – but there were also reasons that would point to trying to get more and more people into the ecosystem. Facebook,” Dorsey said. Tuesday at the MicroStrategy World conference. “They did that instead of using an open protocol and standard like Bitcoin.”

“I hope they learned a lot, but I think there was a lot of effort and time wasted,” he added. “Those two or three years, or however long, could have been spent on making Bitcoin more accessible to more people around the world, which would also benefit their Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp product.”

Meta launched Diem in mid-2019 alongside a consortium of other technology and financial companies in hopes that the digital currency would become a global rival to Bitcoin and other fiat currencies. The idea was to create something that could be transmitted instantly between users, even across borders. Diem was spun off into its own independent organization, meaning Meta no longer controlled the fate of the currency, but the project never emerged from Meta’s shadow. He was eventually killed by regulatory pushback, which made it difficult for the Diem Association to launch its proposed digital coin.

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Meta built a digital wallet for its suite of apps that was meant to hold Diem and allow people to spend or transfer it.

On Monday, the Diem Association confirmed that it sold its remaining assets to Silvergate Capital Corp.

Dorsey, one of the founders of Twitter Inc., is a longtime rival of Facebook. He is also one of the most famous and vocal Bitcoin supporters in the tech industry, and a firm believer in the currency’s promise to be decentralized, which means that no individual company or bank could own or control it.

When Meta first announced his plans for Diem, Dorsey criticized the effort. When asked if he planned to join the association that ran Diem, he replied “no”. After Bloomberg reported last week that the Diem Association was in talks to sell its remaining assets, Dorsey tweeted a link to the story with the comment “carpe diem.”

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