Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) urged Meta this week to fully disclose its stablecoin-related ambitions, arguing that the tech giant must reveal the plans before lawmakers vote on a major crypto-related bill currently pending in the Senate.
Following the launch of its USDC creator payout program, Meta emphasized it is not issuing its own stablecoin.
“The lack of transparency regarding the details of Meta’s stablecoin-related plans is deeply troubling,” Warren scolded Zuckerberg in Wednesday’s letter.
The senator contended that, given Meta’s 3.5 billion worldwide users, any decision on the company’s part to favor one stablecoin product over another “could have serious implications for competition, privacy, the integrity of our payments system, and financial stability.”
Last spring, Warren and another senator, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), asked Meta to disclose whether it planned to adopt stablecoins or not. A company executive replied only that “we currently have no plans to issue a stablecoin in the future”—but did not elaborate about any potential arrangements with third-parties.
Warren has now asked the tech giant to inform her, by May 20, of the nature of its experiments with third-party stablecoin issuers. She has also asked Meta to detail if it plans to prefer such a stablecoin over other payment options, what privacy guardrails it would put on the currency, and any financial arrangements between the company and a stablecoin issuer, among other questions.
