Senate’s Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal want Meta to explain what its stablecoin plans are.
In a letter sent to the social media giant on Wednesday, the legislators asked the company, formerly known as Facebook, to detail its stableecoin ambitions and pointed to previous reports on issues Meta has had with fraud, “alleged anti -competitive behavior,” and privacy.
Meta is considering using stablecoins for payments, reported Fortune last month.
“If Meta controlled its own stableecoin, the company could further pry to consumer transactions and commercial activity,” the letter said. “The huge amounts of consumer data it would take could help Meta -Fuel Monitoring Prices on its platform, more intrusive targeted advertising or otherwise help the company make money on sensitive private information through sales to third -party data brokers.”
The letter included a list of questions including whether Meta is considering launching its own stableecoin, whether it is or any device affiliated with, the lobby for the Senate or House’s StableCoin Bill proposal or otherwise provided feedback on the bill. It also asked if Meta would push back against a change that would block large tech companies in associating or owning a stableecoin issuer.
It also asked the company to explain how its new stableecoin plan can deviate from the now closed weight (later DIEM) project Meta spear in 2019.
“The company tried to issue its own private currency in 2019-as part of the so-called Vibra StableCoin project and was met with overwhelming bipartisan and international opposition,” the letter noted.
A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately return a request for comment.
The letter comes the same day as the Senate is set to vote on the Genius Act, its stablecoin law proposal. Although Senate’s majority leader John Thune said weeks ago that the body could consider changes to the bill, he told Politico earlier this week that the path to changes was less clear.
The bill is likely to adopt without any changes. Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat in Arizona, told Coindesk last week that he expected 16 Democrats to support the bill along with a majority of Republicans, easily clearing the 60-voting procedural threshold for coagulation.
