Facebook’s Crypto – What We Know So Far
It is no secret that Facebook is wanting to join the big crypto race. The social media giant, despite its efforts to keep everything under wraps, has somehow given proof to its highly anticipated digital currency. Here is everything we know about it right now.
An Asset-Backed Crypto
Facebook has yet to make any public announcements regarding its crypto. However, there have been reports over the past few months pointing to the tech firm’s crypto ambitions. For starters, the team is being led by former PayPal president named David Marcus, with an idea to develop an asset-backed digital currency.
The company’s crypto is believed to have the ability to operate within the firm’s very own messaging infrastructure. The latter, in particular, covers the social media giant’s Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The only fact arising from these talks is the one that came directly from Facebook’s Laura McCracken, the company’s Northern Europe head of financial services and payment partnerships. In an interview, she revealed that the company will be releasing a white paper come June 18. Even more so, she clarified that the token, contrary to popular belief, will not be tied to any form of single fiat currency. Rather, it will be directly linked to a basket of currencies.
Facebook’s Interest in the Space
Apparently, Facebook’s interest in joining the digital currency race dates to 2017, the time when it seriously talked about its plans to having a distributed ledger technology. During this time, Marcus joined the board of directors of Coinbase and became the vice president of messaging products of the social media giant.
While Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp are both considered giants in the industry, they do not have the functionality to offer payments. Interestingly, this ability is better provided by the social network’s top competitor WeChat, which is basically China’s own version of Messenger.
August 2018 came and Facebook’s interest towards cryptocurrency grew even bigger. Basically, Marcus decided to leave Coinbase, though the company claimed that the decision to do so was to simply avoid any conflict of interest. December of the same year and Facebook revealed its interest towards developing a stablecoin.
Part of the Bigger Picture
At that time, Facebook said it would be solely for WhatsApp, with a focus on India. Well, it turns out, it is just part of the company’s bigger plan.
April 2019 and the tech firm’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that sending money to someone should be easier, something akin to sending a photo. Of course, it does not relate itself to a crypto announcement, but it does fit to the larger story.
With the upcoming white paper, based on McCracken’s announcement, it is interesting to see just how Facebook plans to invade the crypto space. From there, people will finally have a better idea of how the company’s digital currency works.