Meta Crypto Head David Marcus Departs Company to Pursue Own Ideas

Facebook parent Meta’s crypto head, David Marcus, is leaving the company at the end of the year, CNBC reported.

Marcus had been a member of the company since August 2014, according to the report. At that time, his role was vice president of the Messenger service, a role which he left to debut Facebook’s financial projects unit in May 2018. From there, the division announced Facebook’s Libra blockchain currency, along with the Calibra digital wallet. Both were to go live in 2020.

However, neither ended up coming to fruition. Facebook was in the midst of controversy and didn’t release a digital currency at all. The digital wallet project, renamed Novi, was rolled out in October that year though.

In a Twitter thread, Marcus said his intention is to go in new directions with his own personal ideas.

“While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of launching Novi — and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems — my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it,” he wrote in a tweet.

While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of launching Novi — and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems — my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it. (2/7)

— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) November 30, 2021

Marcus’ departure isn’t the only recent one for the social media giant, the report stated. It’s also faced the departures of project founders Morgan Beller, who left in September 2020 to go into venture capital, and Kevin Weil, who left to join satellite company Planet, which is working on documenting changes to the Earth.

In other news, Meta’s plans to encrypt Facebook and Instagram have been pushed back to 2023.

Read more: Facebook and Instagram Encryption Delayed to 2023

Meta has been using end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp, which it planned to roll out for Facebook Messenger and Instagram in 2022. However, child safety advocates have said the measures will prevent law enforcement from detecting messages and seeing child abuse online.