Nikolas Sargeant
Waters highlighted the significance of the trademark applications, all filed on March 18, 2022, as indications of Meta's ongoing involvement in digital assets, contradicting Meta's statement to Democratic Financial Services Committee staff on October 12, 2023, where they claimed to have no ongoing digital assets initiatives.
Having faced challenges in the past, including abandoning the Diem stablecoin (formerly Libra) in 2019 and the stalled release of the Novi digital wallet (formerly Calibra), Meta is now under scrutiny for its recent trademark filings covering various services related to crypto and blockchain assets.
Each filing has received a Notice of Allowance (NOA), signaling that the application meets registration requirements. Meta has until at least February 15 to respond to the first NOA issued on August 15, 2023, and until July 16 for the latest NOA issued on January 16.
The opening of Waters' letter to Zuckerberg and Olivan.
Waters' letter seeks clarification on Meta's response to the NOAs, inquiries about potential Web3, crypto, or digital wallet projects, and whether the company is planning to launch a crypto payments platform. Waters also pressed Meta on its exploration of stablecoins, partnerships with stablecoin projects, consideration of distributed ledger technology (DLT), and how its technology might facilitate crypto-related functions within its metaverse.
