Meta, the parent of Facebook, sees its top crypto executive leaving later this year.

David Marcus said he is leaving Novi, the Facebook crypto unit he heads up and used to run Messenger, later this year. Marcus joined Facebook in 2014. The tech giant keeps suffering major exits from long-time executives. Last month, Facebook's chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer announced that he would leave his job after thirteen years at the company.

Former Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel who previously served as the head of Product for Novi will step in to take over the reins of the org from Marcus.
 
Starting when he was president of PayPal, Marcus has been an insider favorite among crypto enthusiasts due to his role as being one of the first wave of tech executives to warm up to Bitcoin and other cryptos. Marcus was on Coinbase's board.

His time running crypto at Facebook has been largely derailed by failure as the company's Diem cryptocurrency project has run into intense industry and regulatory pushback that have forced the company to slow the rate at which it was rolling out new efforts in the crypto space. Earlier this year, the company launched a small pilot of its cryptocurrency wallet Novi that allowed users in the United States and Guatemala to exchange "stablecoin" cryptocurrencies using the app.

He drops hints that he might be plotting to launch something of his own.

"While there is still so much to do right on the heels of launching Novi—and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems—my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to keep ignoring it," Marcus wrote in a tweet thread.

Personal news: it has been a truly fulfilling seven years at Meta, but I have made the difficult decision to be leaving the company at the end of this year. (1/7)