When Meta announced an ambitious plan in 2019 to introduce its own digital currency to billions of Facebook and Instagram users, the response was radioactive. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives subjected CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a bruising interrogation, and the media cast the company’s so-called Libra currency as an instrument of political and economic destabilization. How times change. Six years later, Meta is renewing its crypto push and the project is barely news. The reason for this is the focus of the latest issue of Fortune’s Crypto Playbook, available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.
The topic of Meta’s return to crypto, first reported by Fortune in mid-2025, resurfaced last week after a trade publication noted the company is asking Stripe and others for requests for proposals. Senior writer Leo Schwartz and I discussed the business case, and also looked back at the original plan for Libra—which never launched—and how it came at the worst possible time for Meta, which was then still known as Facebook.
Initially announced as a planned consortium featuring big names like Visa, Uber, and Vodafone, Libra was designed as a stablecoin for global use backed by a basket of fiat currencies, including the dollar and euro. The plan had considerable promise as it offered a cheap and easy way for people to send money to friends and families across borders via apps like Instagram and WhatsApp they used already. For businesses, the plan had the potential to lower foreign exchange costs.
Looking back, Facebook anticipated the crypto world of today where stablecoins are no longer controversial and are fast becoming part of the corporate finance operations of major retailers. In 2019, however, the crypto sector was still poorly understood by political leaders. Meanwhile, Facebook’s name was mud following privacy scandals related to a data partner named Cambridge Analytica, whose ads helped influence the outcome of the prior U.S. Presidential election.
It didn’t take long for news stories to appear that accused Facebook of seeking to usurp governments with its own form of money, and for competitors to warn the plan would let the social media giant consolidate its monopoly. In response, the biggest names of the Libra consortium bolted, and Zuckerberg was subject to withering questions from both Democrats and Republicans at a televised hearing.
While Facebook has yet to announce a release date or any specifics for its latest stablecoin plans, the arrival of the new Libra—or whatever the currency will be called this time around—is unlikely to make waves at a time when stablecoins like Circle and Coinbase’s USDC are part of daily business in the U.S.
The upshot is that Facebook’s initial crypto push reflects the business adage that being early is the same as being wrong. The company had the right idea, but its timing was off—though it’s an open question whether another big tech firm with less baggage, such as Apple or Amazon, could have pulled it off.
You can hear more about Facebook’s crypto forays on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, as well as discussions about President Trump restating that Sam Bankman-Fried will not get a pardon, and the vibe at Ethereum Denver.
