Dorsey says Meta should have focused on bitcoin, not Diem
written by Bella PalmerSpeaking at the Bitcoin for Corporations event on Tuesday, Mr Dorsey said Diem ‘wasted effort and time’ and distracted from the existing solution for a native internet currency
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has said Meta (formerly Facebook) should focus on bitcoin after it failed in its attempt to launch a global cryptocurrency.
Meta officially abandoned its Diem project after four years this week, with those behind it blaming pushback from regulators and ‘the behaviour of certain politicians’.
Speaking at the Bitcoin for Corporations event on Tuesday, Mr Dorsey said Diem ‘wasted effort and time’ and distracted from the existing solution for a native internet currency.
This whole thing with Libra and then Diem, I think there’s a ton of lessons there. Hopefully they learned a lot, but I think there was a lot of wasted effort and time, he told MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor.
Those two or three years, or however long it’s been, could’ve been spent making bitcoin more accessible for more people around the world. This would also benefit their Messenger product, Instagram, and WhatsApp, he added. We have these open networks right now. It’s not accessible to everyone, but it’s usable.
Bitcoin adoption benefits everyone, Dorsey continued. However, it challenges some conventional thinking in Silicon Valley.
I think it changes a lot, but we just have to be open to not having to own the thing. You don’t have to own it to get value from it, Dorsey said about bitcoin.
The Twitter co-founder left his role as CEO of the social media giant last year to focus on crypto-related ventures, most notably his payments company Block, formerly known as Square.
Block’s popular Cash App platform recently integrated the bitcoin Lightning Network, allowing its millions of users to send BTC for free to anyone around the world instantly.
Mr Dorsey also set up TBD, a platform designed as an ‘on-ramp’ to enable more people around the world to acquire bitcoin and become involved in the crypto economy.
We’re now the closest we’ve ever been to having a native currency for the internet, which for me changes everything, he said.
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