Elizabeth Warren wants Meta to drop everything on stablecoin plans before Clarity Act vote

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) this week urged Meta to fully disclose its stablecoin ambitions, arguing that the tech giant should reveal plans before lawmakers vote on a major cryptocurrency-related bill currently pending in the Senate.

“It is imperative that Congress fully understands the implications of Meta’s stablecoin integration plans as it considers legislation to regulate the cryptocurrency market,” Warren said in a statement. letter It was sent to Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg this week.

Warren is the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Banking Committee, which, after months of delay, may soon hold a vote on the bill. The law of clarity– A bill that would officially legalize most cryptocurrency-related activities in the United States.

Meta, which owns Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger, Rolled Last month’s program to pay compensation to creators at USDC, a Stable coin Linked to the value of the US dollar. It was launched after February CoinDesk A report reveals the company’s plan to integrate a third-party stablecoin for in-app payments across its platforms in the second half of this year.

After launching the USDC creator compensation program, Meta confirmed this no Issuing its own stablecoin.

Meta previously attempted to release its own stablecoin, Libra, in 2019, but… Abandoned The effort was made after Congress backed away from the idea of ​​such a large company creating its own currency.

However, following the passage of last year The law of genius– A bill legalizes the issuance of stablecoins in the United States – Meta began to reconsider fintech.

“The lack of transparency regarding the details of Meta’s stablecoin plans is deeply troubling,” Warren rebuked Zuckerberg in a letter Wednesday.

The senator stressed that given Meta’s 3.5 billion users worldwide, any decision by the company to favor one stablecoin product over another “could have serious implications for competition, privacy, the integrity of our payments system, and financial stability.”

Last spring, Warren and another senator, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), asked Meta to disclose whether or not she planned to adopt stablecoins. A company executive responded only by saying, “We currently have no plans to issue a stablecoin in the future” — but did not elaborate on any potential arrangements with third parties.

Warren has now asked the tech giant to inform her, by May 20, of the nature of its experiments with third-party stablecoin issuers. It also asked Meta to clarify whether it plans to favor such a stablecoin over other payment options, what privacy guardrails it would place on the coin, and any financial arrangements between the company and the stablecoin issuer, among other questions.