Maxine Waters weighs in on crypto and blockchain projects.

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee is pressuring Meta to open any blockchain or crypto-related plans it may have — a total of five cryptocurrencies and blockchain-related token applications — starting in 2022.

The committee's ranking member, Maxine Waters, wrote in a Jan. 22 letter to Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CEO Javier Oliva that the trademark applications — all due March 18, 2022 — “seem to demonstrate a continued desire to expand the company's presence. The Ecosystem of Digital Assets”.

Waters said the applications show that Meta is working on digital assets, despite Meta telling Democratic Financial Services Committee staff on October 12, 2023 that there is “no ongoing digital asset activity at Meta.”

In mid-2019, Meta abandoned plans for its payments crypto stablecoin Diem (formerly Libra) due to pressure from lawmakers. In January 2022, he sold Dim for $200 million to the now-defunct Silvergate Bank.

Meta's mid-2019 plan for digital wallet Novi (formerly Calibra) has left no sign of a new release date in 2020.

The trademark documents refer to trading, exchange, payments, transfers, wallets and associated hardware and software infrastructure services for crypto and “blockchain assets”.

For each application, a Notice of Grant (NOA) – that the application meets the registration requirements – is sent to Meta, which must use the trademark within six months or request a six-month extension to file the declaration.

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Meta has until February 15, 2023, to respond to the NOA that was first sent on August 15, 2023. The final NOA was sent on January 16, meaning he has until July 16 to respond.

Meta asked how Waters would respond to NOAs if he intends to pursue any Web3, crypto or digital wallet projects and is launching a crypto payments platform.

She asked how much meta research has been done regarding the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and how the technology allows for crypto-related activities within the metauniversity regarding partnerships with stablecoins or stablecoin projects.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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