David Marcus was leading Diem at Facebook before that got shut down. Very exciting to see someone who could've done a million other things pursuing a Lightning startup.
I'm not sure if he's in stealth or raised money without an idea, but there's literally no information about what they plan on doing other than "diving deep."1
The Block Crypto article explicitly says they aren't interested pursuing stablecoins (which was my first guess given the recent buzz created by Taro):
Lightspark will not focus on building its own stablecoin or cryptocurrency.
They also seem to have a star-studded corporate cast:
In addition to Marcus, other members of the team include James Everingham, who was previously a vice president of engineering at Novi. Christian Catalini, who built Diem with Marcus, will be charged with leading the company's economic and strategy efforts. Robinhood's former chief marketing and communications officer Christina Smedley will lead comms for Lightspark.
Wait a second... didn't Jack Mallers go to a dinner with high executives of Facebook/Meta/Diem and bashed them for doing a separate thing instead of using Bitcoin? Like a couple of weeks or months before they closed the project?
i’m quite optimistic about the VCs. the fact that the largest crypto funds in the world are taking a shot on lightning companies marks a major inflection point imo.
they all invested in lightspark knowing there is no extra token, no ponzinomics, etc…
i think they’re here because they see the potential we all see for lightning.
They were one of the major backers of Segwit2X and have funded 100x more CrYpTo projects than bitcoin ones. I doubt much good can come of their involvement.
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