Forget Bitcoin. What about a Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) coin?
Cheddar reported Friday that the world’s largest social media platform is meticulously laying the groundwork to create its own cryptocurrency to facilitate digital payments for its two billion users.
Let’s get right to the details we have so far about this possibility.
Writing on the wall?
As you know, this week Facebook announced a shakeup of sorts to its Messenger team, and said that it was working on ways the social network could integrate Blockchain technology. At the time, we reported that David Marcus, the head of Facebook’s Messenger department, will be at the helm of the endeavor.
Well, Cheddar reports that one of his responsibilities will be to bring this digital token idea to fruition. Noteworthy about Marcus is his enthusiasm about cryptocurrencies. Also, he’s a former president of PayPal, and he sits on Coinbase’s board of directors.
This all makes him an ideal person to lead Facebook’s efforts to create its own digital token.
According to the Cheddar, the team is composed of fewer than a dozen people, but expectations are that the team will grow.
Why would Facebook do this?
Payments specifically is a very serious avenue Facebook wants to look into for Blockchain, according to Cheddar. It reports that the reasons Facebook would want its own crypto include being able to facilitate transactions across borders without the need for a government-backed currency.
Payments using cryptos have issues, ranging from them being very expensive and very slow, so Facebook sees creating its own crypto as being a solution.
Also, having its own digital currency would be especially helpful for some of its properties, such as WhatsApp, which is used by many people located in countries where the currencies are very volatile.
Elephant in the room
We are just two months removed from the privacy/leak debacle that slammed Facebook. It was revealed in March.
The fiasco led to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg being dragged before members of Congress to explain how his company was going to do a better job to protect the privacy of users.
Granted, this Blockchain/i.e. digital currency idea seems to have been born last year. However, given lawmakers extreme anxiety over the debacle, not to mention how many of them seem on the verge of stroke when it comes to cryptos, I wonder how this will go over with them.
We’ll keep you posted!
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
