Facebook closes its cryptocurrency pilot project

on September 1, Meta (ex-Facebook) will shut down Novi, a pilot crypto project for making payments through a digital wallet. The company announced its decision on the service’s website by sending users a text message with a link to an announcement urging them to withdraw their money from the platform as soon as possible.

Starting July 21, users will lose the ability to add money to their Novi wallet accounts. The Novi WhatsApp account and the Novi smartphone app will also become unavailable.

The Novi cryptocurrency wallet was previously called Calibra and was originally intended for use with the Libra stablecoin (later renamed diem). However, under pressure from regulators, the company’s plans to launch its own token changed and in October 2020, Novi became a cryptocurrency-based money transfer project.

Meta plans to use Novi’s technology in future products, for example, in its metaverse project, a company spokesperson said in an email to fortune.com. Having abandoned plans to launch its own cryptocurrency, Meta has turned its attention to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and virtual universes.