Whatsapp and Meta’s cryptocurrency portfolio Novi, formerly Facebook, announced a pilot project that will allow US users to send and receive digital assets through the chat app.
Customers can up to now send and receive the USDP. “We chose stablecoin for testing because it has been operating successfully for over three years and in the US it has important regulatory and consumer protection attributes,” says David Marcus, CEO of Novi.
USDP reserves are fully backed in US Dollars, and 1 USDP is equal to US$1.00.
To use the system, Americans can download Whatsapp and can access Novi and send cryptocurrencies to their contacts. However, so far, only a list of people will use the service. Those who are unable to do so must sign up to join a waiting list.
“Globally, an estimated 1.7 billion adults do not have access to a bank account. Staying out of the global financial system has real consequences for people’s lives,” says Marcus. “And that’s the challenge we hope to solve in time with Novi, a digital wallet that helps people send and receive money abroad instantly, securely and without fees.”
Using Novi does not change the privacy of WhatsApp messages and personal calls, said Kasriel.
Meta, formerly Facebook, has been working on a wallet app for several months as it reviews its global plans to launch a digital currency called Diem for regulatory reasons.
For João Marco Cunha, portfolio manager at Hashdex, the project is still in its infancy, but “when it gains full scale, it will mean a large mass of people with a very low cost of entry into cryptoactives, with the potential to greatly increase the number of users” . Today, almost one in three people in the world uses Whatsapp.
Henrique Teixeira, country manager of Grupo Ripio says he sees with great eyes if the project works out. “Offering crypto is an evolution of the financial process, and the operation will allow users with digital assets to be able to make payments from one wallet to another”, he says.
National market
In the domestic scenario, cryptocurrencies also promoted a revolution in the Brazilian monetary system. So much so that many investors use digital assets to build a financial reserve, and the Central Bank – as well as politicians – is also keeping an eye on this market.
The president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, stated that he is interested in regulating cryptocurrencies. “For us, it’s more than the regulation of cryptocurrencies. It’s about regulating the future. It’s about regulating data. Finance will become about data. We are looking at cryptocurrencies, talking to the CVM (Securities Commission), and we recognize that there is a demand for cryptocurrencies.”
He also stated that the regulation of digital assets is already being debated. “Brazilians have used this with investment vehicles, but cryptocurrencies have not grown much in Brazil as a means of payment,” he declared at a press conference on the RTI (Quarterly Inflation Report).
Despite the fact that the Central Bank has not signaled any immediate regulatory action, there are six bills in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies that aim to regulate this market.
PL 4207/2020, by Senator Soraya Thronincke (PSL) seeks to establish rules for issuing cryptocurrencies, in addition to creating obligations for marketplaces. While PL 2.140/2021, by deputy Alexandre Frota (PSDB), aims to establish a period of 180 days for the Central Bank to regulate cryptocurrency transactions.
Anyway, the manager of Hashdex believes that the Whatsapp project will not have a strong impact in Brazil yet, “it has to scale in the US before coming here”. But, as a rule, he sees the Central Bank as a pioneer in digital payments. “Therefore, I would not expect a regulation to come from the [BC brasileiro] make the novelty unfeasible [da Novi] this way”.
requested by CNN, the Central Bank informed that it will not comment on the matter.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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