Facebook leads digital currency wallet Novi. a

Facebook started a long-awaited pilot project of his digital currency wallet Novi in ​​the USA, but decided to use the Paxos dollar Stablecoin after his own cryptocurrency had not received any support from the supervisory authorities.

In a blog post on Tuesday, David Marcus, head of Facebook's Novi Wallet, announced that the company started the pilot project in parts of the USA and Guatemala.

Users could download the app to iPhones or Android and register with a ID issued by the government, said Marcus and added that the money transfer between Wallets would be free. Coinbase, the US cryptocurrency exchange, offers custody services for Novi.

Andreessen Horowitz, the risk capital company, is an investor at both Coinbase and Paxos, and Marc Andreessen, his co -founder, sits on the board of Facebook.

The decision of Facebook to use an existing stablecoin instead of DIEM that Novi should originally hold reflects the difficulties to get the latter project initiated by Facebook.

The overall sector was confronted with questions of consumer protection, money laundering and monetary stability. However, the supervisory authorities have expressed special concerns that the social media giants affected by scandals have operated its own currency since the initiative's announcement in 2019, together with a group of supporters that include technology companies and non-profit organizations.

Marcus, including the manager, who originally cited the company, said the support of the company for Diem "has not changed" and added: "We intend to migrate the wallet to the DIEM payment network as soon as it received the official approval."

He also said that he intends that Novi should be interoperable with other digital wallets in the future.

stablecoins that are bound to assets such as dollars were an important channel for customers who want to switch from Fiat currencies to cryptocurrencies.

The Financial Stability Board, however, warned in October that a “global stable coin” could “question the completeness and effectiveness of existing regulation, supervisory and supervisory approaches”.

paxos dollar is the eight -largest stable coin, according to the cryptocurrency data provider Coingecko. But it makes less than 1 percent of a 130 billion dollar industry dominated by the market leader Tether, followed by USD Coin, operated by Coinbase and the payment company Circle.

Paxos positioned itself as a more responsible currency and received a "preliminary condition" for a US banking charta in April from the Office of the Currency of the Currency.

"Paxos has paved the way to cryptocurrency by developing regulated solutions within established framework conditions," Walter Hessert, Head of Strategy at Paxos, wrote in a blog post.

Marcus said that Paxos was selected because his reserves were kept 100 percent in cash and payment -means equivalents, so that users can easily withdraw money in their national currency.

While Diem originally tried to create a synthetic cryptocurrency that is covered by a currency basket and was based in Switzerland, it has been moved to the USA ever since to concentrate on the introduction of a single stable coin that is covered one -to -one by the dollar. The supporters include Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz.