Facebook launches Novi pilot in U.S., Guatemala, selects Coinbase as custody partner
As bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies get increasing attention from investors, Wall Street and its traditional banks continue to adjust to the shift. Catch up on this week’s top stories highlighting the intersection of these old guard and new school areas of finance with this recap compiled by The Fly.
FACEBOOK ROLLS OUT NOVI PILOT: Facebook’s (FB) David Marcus said Tuesday via Twitter: “Remittances are a critical way to achieve financial inclusion. Today, we’re rolling out a small pilot of the @novi digital wallet app in two countries – the US and Guatemala. People can send and receive money instantly, securely, and with no fees. We’re doing a pilot to test core feature functions, and our operational capabilities in customer care and compliance. We’re also hopeful this will demonstrate a new stablecoin use case beyond how they are typically used today…The Novi pilot uses USDP through partnerships with @paxos and @coinbase (COIN). USDP is a well-designed stablecoin that’s been operating successfully for over three years and has important regulatory and consumer protection attributes. I do want to be clear that our support for Diem hasn’t changed and we intend to launch Novi with Diem once it receives regulatory approval and goes live. We care about interoperability and we want to do it right. Beyond the pilot, our business model is clear. We’re a challenger in payments. We’ll offer free person-to-person payments using Novi. Once we have a solid customer base, we’ll offer cheaper merchant payments and make a profit on merchant services. Scaling Novi will take time and this pilot is a great chance for us to learn from our early customers. We want to make sure that our wallet has been fully tested before we open Novi up to more people.”
FACEBOOK, COINBASE PARTNER FOR NOVI: Facebook has chosen Coinbase as its custody partner for its pilot of Novi, a new digital wallet that enables people to send and receive money “abroad instantly, securely, and with no fees,” Coinbase said in a Tuesday blog post. For the pilot, Coinbase is supporting Novi via Coinbase Custody, which it says “keeps user funds secure with our proprietary, fully segregated cold storage capability for managing private keys.” Novi users who can participate in the pilot can acquire Pax Dollar through their Novi account, which Novi will hold on deposit with Coinbase Custody. Novi users will then be able to transfer USDP between each other instantaneously.
To see the rest of the story Click Here.