Back in October, Facebook (now Meta) launched a small pilot test of its cryptocurrency wallet Novi in the US and Guatemala. Pilot testers have been able to send each other personal payments through the service since then. Now, the company has announced that a limited number of people in the US will also be able to send and receive Novi payments from within WhatsApp.
There’s a new way to try the @Novi digital wallet. Starting today, a limited number of people in the US will be able to send and receive money using Novi on @WhatsApp, making sending money to family and friends as easy as sending a message. 💸💬 pic.twitter.com/dGz3lejri7
— Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) December 8, 2021
The development doesn’t come as a surprise: Novi co-founder David Marcus previously said that Meta will roll out Novi payments to all of its subsidiaries, namely Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. For WhatsApp, sending money will apparently be as easy as sending a message — users won’t even need to leave the application. Head of Novi Stephane Kasriel said on Twitter: “We often hear that people use WhatsApp to coordinate sending money to loved ones, and Novi enables people to do that securely, instantly and with no fees. Payments will appear directly in people’s chat.”
Facebook has been teasing its digital wallet and the Diem (formerly Libra) cryptocurrency it was supposed to support for years. After facing pushback from regulators around the world, though, the Diem Association shifted its focus, and Novi ended up using a stablecoin called the Pax Dollar (USDP) that’s backed by the US dollar. While sending USDP via Novi on WhatsApp has extremely limited availability for now, Kasriel said the service will look to expand its reach after getting feedback from users about the experience.