Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META), is facing scrutiny from US legislators over its five pending crypto-related trademark registrations.

What Happened: As reported by Cointelegraph, on January 22, US House Financial Services Committee member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) penned a letter to Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Javier Olivan. The correspondence raised concerns over the five cryptocurrency and blockchain-oriented trademark applications that the company lodged in March 2022, all of which remain open.

Waters voiced unease over indications that these applications suggest Meta’s ongoing desire to increase its stake in the digital asset landscape. This comes in contrast to Meta’s October 2023 statement to the Democratic Financial Services Committee staff, in which it claimed it had no active digital asset projects.

“I write to express my concerns regarding Meta Platforms, Inc.’s (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
filing status of five trademark applications related to various digital assets services and blockchain
technology with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). With its initial filings on March
18, 2022, Meta’s application submissions as of January 22 appear to represent a continued
intention to expand the company’s involvement in the digital assets ecosystem,” the letter by Waters read.

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Some other questions posed by Waters were: “Is Meta planning to launch a payments platform that supports cryptocurrency? How is Meta’s technology enabling the creation, mining, storage, transmission, or
settlement of cryptocurrencies in its related platforms, including its Metaverse?”

Despite previous plans for a crypto stablecoin, Diem, and a digital wallet, Novi, being abandoned due to legislative pushback, the new trademark applications imply services for crypto and “blockchain assets” trading, exchange, payments, transfers, wallets, and associated hardware and software infrastructure.

Meta must respond to the first Notice of Allowance (NOA) issued in August 2023 by February 15, and to the most recent NOA – sent in January – by July 16. Waters has requested that Meta provide details of its responses to these NOAs, as well as its plans for Web3, crypto, or digital wallet initiatives, including any plans to debut a crypto payments platform.

Meta did not respond to Benzinga’s request to comment at the time of publishing.

Meta Photo by Davide Bonaldo on Shutterstock

Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) was trading at $39,989. down 3.85% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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