Meta shuts down Novi, the last remaining sliver of its crypto efforts

One of the biggest tech companies in the world is apparently feeling the effects of the crypto crash, too.

Novi, a digital wallet for cryptocurrency that Meta debuted in 2021, is on its last legs. Per the Novi website, users have until Sept. 1 to get their info and their remaining crypto balance off the site. As CNBC pointed out, this snuffs out the final, tiny flickering flame from Meta’s crypto efforts over the last few years.

Put simply, Novi was supposed to be a safe way for people to send and receive crypto, and at one point it was supposed to work with Diem, the Facebook-backed cryptocurrency that started life as Libra in 2019 before getting rebranded later. That never actually happened because, in February of this year, Diem collapsed. 

Without even the ability to issue the currency made by its own parent company, Novi didn’t stand a chance. The site never even exited beta into a full 1.0 version. However bullish Mark Zuckerberg and co. may have been (and may still be, privately) about crypto, it seems the idea of decentralized blockchain currency doesn’t have a home within Meta’s corporate walls anymore.

In case you’ve been under a rock, crypto has been crashing hard in 2022. It’s not the first time this has happened, but even crypto news site Coindesk has admitted that this time feels different. A complex combination of COVID, war, inflation, and everything else seems to have made it much harder for the digital dollar dream to sustain itself right now.

With respect to those who have lost their livelihoods due to the current landscape…maybe this is ultimately for the best.