David Marcus walks into a Senate hearing room expecting to sell Congress on Libra. He leaves having been compared to a toddler playing with matches.

On July 16, 2019, the Facebook executive testified before the Senate Banking Committee to defend Libra, Facebook's plan for a global digital currency backed by a basket of national currencies. Facebook had lined up heavyweight backers like Mastercard, PayPal, and Uber, and wanted to slot a wallet straight into Messenger and WhatsApp. Senators were not impressed. Sherrod Brown opened by listing Facebook's scandals and called trusting the company with people's paychecks delusional. Marcus insisted Facebook would only get one vote in the governing association. Nobody in that room believed it.

Every major backer had walked away within seven months, spooked by the regulatory heat lit that week. I love that a company with three billion users couldn't out argue one Senate committee.

Libra rebranded to Diem in 2020 and quietly sold off its assets in 2022. Meta never shipped a currency.

That's today in crypto history, a rough one for Silicon Valley. See you tomorrow.