Diem

Basics

• Started in: 2019
• Fka Libra
• Winded down in early 2022, sold all its assets to Silvergate Bank for $200M.
• Based in: USA, but the association is in Switzerland.
• Facebook's currency, fka called the Libra, backed by Libra Reserves, looked over by Libra Association which is comprised of a consortium of big companies, accessed to by using the Novi (fka Calibra) Wallet.

History

• No longer active (2-2022).
• "Facebook is set to begin testing its cryptocurrency this year (2019) with plans for a public rollout in 2020, reports the BBC; referred to internally as GlobalCoin but then announced as Libra, the company is expected to reveal details of the project this summer; the digital currency will underpin the firm’s Project Libra, a worldwide payments network; Facebook has sought regulatory advice from the US Treasury, and held discussions with Bank of England head Mark Carney."
• Got rebranded to Diem (1-12-2020):

"The Diem Association head says that rebranding is part of the efforts to appease regulators. Diem is looking to launch its dollar stablecoin in Jan. 2021."

• The Novi wallet will use Pax Dollars (20-10-2021) as the main currency during the test (instead of their own DIEM).

Token

Token Details

• The stable coin would be backed by FIAT; the USD, GBP, EUR and JPY for now. Kind of like SDR's that are also used by Maker.
• Each of the consortium members of the Libra project will get a Libra Investment Token (LIT), with which they can participate in the governance of the Libra Association. There might also be a possibility that they will get rewarded in LIT for taking care of the nodes in the system.

• The Libra Association will manage the Libra Reserve to maintain stability and create growth of the Libra economy. The rent that will be earned on the Libra reserves will be used to pay for the costs. The Libra Association will be the only entity that can create and destroy Libra
• The Association creates new Libra when authorised resellers bought it with fiat to cover for the new Libra. Libra will be destroyed when authorised resellers sell Libra back to the association. The Libra Reserve will therefor act as the "buyer of last resort".

• Kind of like SDR's that are also used by Maker.

Tech

• Whitepaper can be found [insert here].

• Facebook says they won't tie your money to an ID according to the whitepaper: "The Libra blockchain in pseudonymous an allows users to hold on ore more addresses that are not linked to their real-world identity.” But that’s not true because “Calibra will require users to go through an intensive Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC)” on-boarding for every user.
• Has made changes to it's whitepaper (17-4-2020):

"Facebook Inc. and its partners said their Libra cryptocurrency project will now support multiple versions of the digital coins, the majority of which will be backed by individual fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar, as part of changes made to appease skeptical regulators worldwide. The Libra Association, the governing body overseeing the proposed project, redesigned the currency and made other changes responding to financial regulators concerned the effort could undermine the power and control of central banks."

Consensus Algorithm

• HotStuff will be the consensus protocol behind the Libra BFT blockchain. For a look into HotStuff check out this link.
• For now it will be a permissioned blockchain with well known node operators. The plan is that it will grown into a permissionless blockchain within 5 years.

Roadmap

• For a timeline so far (12-6-2109) check here

Funding and the investment token

• Facebook is planning to launch a full payments network (rather than just remittances) and in discussions with payment networks Visa and Mastercard, payments processors such as giant First Data as well as large e-commerce merchants to support the launch.
  1. Facebook is seeking up to $1 billion in investments collectively from these firms in order to act as collateral to bolster and back a stablecoin that will be associated with the payments network.
  2. A stablecoin will exist as the currency of the payments system in order to eliminate credit card fees for merchants as well as to avoid the volatility of other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether.
  3. The company is considering tying the coin to Facebook's core ads engine, rewarding users for viewing ads and then purchasing goods, similar to how loyalty points rewards work.

• According to new sources the coin will be funded by a consortium of companies.

"Enlisting the support of some of the most prominent companies across payments, retail, and technology, Facebook’s cryptocurrency will be governed by a consortium of firms known as the Libra Association, which includes the likes of Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and dozens of firms not previously known to be involved, including investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and non-profits including Mercy Corps. Calibra, a subsidiary Facebook formed to oversee the social media giant’s crypto efforts, is also among the founding members.

This funding from the consortium members will back the coin (each will put 10 million in the Libra Reserve), which will be pegged to a basket of currencies. If successful, Facebook could net $1 billion from the 100 companies it hopes to include in the project. Each of these nodes will also reportedly get a seat in the Libra Association as node operators, sending a representative to the consortium."

Each of the members will get a Libra Investment Token (LIT), with which they can participate in the governance of the Libra Association. There might also be a possibility that they will get rewarded in LIT for taking care of the nodes in the system.

• The Libra Association will manage the Libra Reserve to maintain stability and create growth of the Libra economy. The rent that will be earned on the Libra reserves will be used to pay for the costs. The Libra Association will be the only entity that can create and destroy Libra
• The Association creates new Libra when authorised resellers bought it with fiat to cover for the new Libra. Libra will be destroyed when authorised resellers sell Libra back to the association. The Libra Reserve will therefor act as the "buyer of last resort".

For a partial list of the members check below.

• "In a nod to cryptocurrencies’ open source ethos, the project has an active, live Libra Core “in anticipation of a global collaborative effort to advance this new ecosystem,” described as “a set of replicas — referred to as validators — from different authorities to jointly maintain a database of programmable resources. These resources are owned by different user accounts authenticated by public key cryptography and adhere to custom rules specified by the developers of these resources. Validators process transactions and interact with each other to reach consensus on the state of the database. Transactions are based on predefined and, in future versions, user-defined smart contracts in a new programming language called Move."
• "Developers working for startup OpenZeppelin found vulnerabilities in Move. “The vulnerability in the Move IR compiler allows malicious actors to introduce executable code to their smart contracts disguised as inline comments,” OpenZeppelin’s CEO Demian Brener told CoinDesk. Brener said the code was disclosed to Libra Aug. 6, with the Libra team evaluating and fixing the bug over the following month. As of Sept. 4, the patch was reviewed and confirmed to be fixed by OpenZeppelin."
• Move its first implementation will be in Rust.

Team, Members, investors, etc.

• Facebook's Project Libra now counts one in five staff as former PayPal employees, according to Bloomberg's Facebook insiders (PayPal itself however pulled out of the project in 10-2019); per the sources, the coin, which could launch as early as Q3 this year, will be sandboxed in India via Facebook's WhatsApp. Facebook has also picked up two ex-Coinbase employees for its blockchain and other products.
• From Cointelegraph (6-5-2020):

"The Libra Association announced the appointment of Obama’s former under secretary for terrorism as its first CEO. Stuart Levey served as an under secretary for terrorism under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, focusing on the enforcement of all U.S. anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing laws by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). In his most recent position, he served as the chief legal officer at HSBC."

• Stuart Levey; CEO. From Forbes (6-5-2020): "Mr. Levey served as the first Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence during the Bush and Obama Administrations. Mr. Levey is currently serving as Chief Legal Officer of HSBC.  Mr. Levey will step down from his role at HSBC and join the Libra Association later this summer."
• David Marcus; Facebook Head of Calibra
• Jeff Cartwright has been tapped for policy and compliance work and brings experience from American Express and Goldman Sachs;
• Mikheil Moucharrafie has been hired as a compliance officer for the social media giant's blockchain project.
• Christian Catalini; one of the 53 authors of the white paper
• Noah Jessop
• Morgan Beller — General Partner at NFX and Co-creator of Diem≋

Partners

• Is itself a member of Hyperledger.
• "Libra intends to admit new members to the Association in 2020, a person familiar with the situation said. The waitlist is currently north of 1,500 companies. A roughly two-thirds majority of existing members must agree to add any new participant."

Here is the partial list of consortium members:

Blockchain

• Coinbase – cryptocurrency wallet and exchange platform

• BisonTrails – infrastructure-as-a-service company. Its platform enables a variety of features including staking, validating, voting, transacting and securing blockchain protocols

• Xapo – cryptocurrency custody provider
• Anchorage – custodial service for digital assets 

E-commerce

• Farfetch – online platform for luxury fashion 
• Shopify - Announcement (2-2020) 

Investment firms

• Andreessen Horowitz – venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz
• Union Square Ventures – venture capital firm based in New York City
• Creative Destruction Lab – seed-stage program for scalable, science-based companies
• Ribbit Capital – venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies
• Thrive Capital – venture capital firm focused on internet and software investments 

Nonprofit

• Women’s World Banking – uses a network of 40 independent micro-finance institutions and banks provide support to entrepreneurs in the underdeveloped world with an emphasis on women 
• Kiva – 501 non-profit organization that allows users to lend money to low-income entrepreneurs in over 80 countries through its platform
• Mercy Corps – global humanitarian aid organization that provides support to regions hit by disasters, whether they be economic, environmental, social or political

Payments

• PayU – assists online businesses with accepting and processing payments
• (Pulled out of the project on 11-10-2019) Mastercard – global payments provider
• Tagomi - offers a platform that helps large traders and funds easily access cryptocurrency markets. Announcement (26-2-2020).

Ride-share

• Lyft – transportation company that offers ride-sharing
• Uber – ride-sharing platform

Social Media

• Facebook (Calibra) – subsidiary Facebook created for Libra

Telecommunication

• Vodafone – British multinational telecommunications company (Pulled out of the project on 21-1-2020) 
• Illiad – French provider of telecommunication services

Possible future Node opperators

• Binance - Exchange who has speculated on becoming one

Who's not in the coalition is just as interesting as who's in it. No banks. Not one.

Members pulling out of the projects

After USA congressional threats multiple members pulled out of the Libra project.

• PayPal – operates a worldwide payment system (pulled out of the project on 4-10-2019)
• Ebay – e-commerce corporation that enables consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website (Pulled out of the project on 11-10-2019)
• Mercado Pago (MercadoLibre) – Argentine e-commerce site incorporated in the U.S. with an online marketplace and auction (Pulled out of the project on 11-10-2019)  

• Visa – payments technology company (Pulled out of the project on 11-10-2019)  
• Stripe – technology company where businesses can send and receive payments over the internet (Pulled out of the project on 11-10-2019)  

• Booking Holdings – provider of online travel (Pulled out of the project on 14-10-2019)

"Non-profits Kiva and Mercy Corps, venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), crypto custodian Anchorage, Bison Trails and wallet provider Xapo all confirmed to CoinDesk Friday (11-10-2019) their intent to stay in the Libra Association."

• Libra responded it still believes (16-10-2019) it will launch with 100 starting members:

"The Libra Association said some 1,500 firms have expressed interest in joining the project with about 180 meeting the given criteria. Fourteen of the original 21 members must agree to each new party joining the project, however."

Diem Association

• Headquartered in Switzerland and in talks with Switzerland's financial regulator to oversee Facebook's planned cryptocurrency.
• The Libra Association will manage the Libra Reserve to maintain stability and create growth of Facebooks's stablecoin Libra economy. The rent that will be earned on the Libra reserves will be used to pay for the costs. The Libra Association will be the only entity that can create and destroy Libra

• According to new sources the coin will be funded by a consortium of companies.

"Enlisting the support of some of the most prominent companies across payments, retail, and technology, Facebook’s cryptocurrency will be governed by a consortium of firms known as the Libra Association, which includes the likes of Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and dozens of firms not previously known to be involved, including investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and non-profits including Mercy Corps. Calibra, a subsidiary Facebook formed to oversee the social media giant’s crypto efforts, is also among the founding members.

This funding from the consortium members will back the coin (each will put 10 million in the Libra Reserve), which will be pegged to a basket of currencies. If successful, Facebook could net $1 billion from the 100 companies it hopes to include in the project. Each of these nodes will also reportedly get a seat in the Libra Association as node operators, sending a representative to the consortium."

Each of the members will get a Libra Investment Token (LIT), with which they can participate in the governance of the Libra Association. There might also be a possibility that they will get rewarded in LIT for taking care of the nodes in the system.

• The Libra Association will manage the Libra Reserve to maintain stability and create growth of the Libra economy. The rent that will be earned on the Libra reserves will be used to pay for the costs. The Libra Association will be the only entity that can create and destroy Libra
• The Association creates new Libra when authorised resellers bought it with fiat to cover for the new Libra. Libra will be destroyed when authorised resellers sell Libra back to the association. The Libra Reserve will therefor act as the "buyer of last resort".