Meta deserted crypto in 2022. Maxine Waters desires to know why the corporate remains to be submitting patents for it

“With its initial filings on March 18, 2022, Meta’s application submissions as of January 22 appear to represent a continued intention to expand the company’s involvement in the digital assets ecosystem,” reads the letter sent on Jan. 22.

Does the corporate have a brand new plan for crypto? Meta didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Fortune.

Previously yr, Meta has submitted 5 purposes for emblems associated to cryptocurrency or blockchain. Waters implied that these emblems contradict communications between the Democratic Monetary Providers committee and Meta employees. In line with her letter, representatives of Meta acknowledged that the corporate will not be pursuing any developments associated to digital belongings or the blockchain. The congresswoman now seeks clarification.

This isn’t the primary time that Waters, the rating member of the Home Committee on Monetary Providers, has clashed with executives at Meta, previously Facebook. In June 2019, the corporate introduced plans to create a stablecoin—a cryptocurrency that’s sometimes tied to a reserve, such because the U.S. greenback—and a pockets service, initially named Libra and Calibra, respectively. 

“With the announcement that it plans to create a cryptocurrency, Facebook is continuing its unchecked expansion and extending its reach into the lives of its users,” Waters said in a 2019 statement. “The cryptocurrency market currently lacks a clear regulatory framework to provide strong protections for investors, consumers, and the economy.”

However, Meta cast forward, later rebranding the mission as Diem, choosing Switzerland for the headquarters of Diem Affiliation, the corporate that managed the coin. Waters, for her half, continued to observe the event, holding congressional hearings and even flying to Switzerland to satisfy with authorities officers. 

Waters wasn’t alone in wanting into Diem or, for that matter, stablecoins, for which the U.S. nonetheless has no clear laws. A November 2021 report issued by the President’s Working Group on Monetary Markets, the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company, and the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money included considerations about such a focus of energy in a single firm that’s producing each the stablecoin and its associated pockets.

“This combination could have detrimental effects on competition and lead to market concentration in sectors of the real economy,” the report said. “A stablecoin that becomes widely adopted as a means of payment could present concerns about anti-competitive effects.”

The Diem Affiliation had tried for greater than two years to discover a viable path with regulators each within the U.S. and overseas, however virtually three months after that report got here out, the organization folded. All belongings and mental property had been acquired by Silvergate, a California-based financial institution that gives crypto-related providers.

After saying the top of operations, Diem CEO Stuart Levey argued that the corporate had obtained combined messages from regulators. In an announcement, Diem insisted that regulators seen the stablecoin mission as progressive and well-designed, arguing that modifications had been carried out in accordance with regulators’ considerations.

“Despite giving us positive substantive feedback on the design of the network,” Levey mentioned in January 2022, “it nevertheless became clear from our dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead.”