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Facebook owns your entire life, your memories, job searches, and even dating services. Why wouldn’t the social media giant attempt to start their very own currency? And in what better way than with a trendy cryptocurrency?
A new report from Cheddar states that “Facebook is exploring the creation of its own cryptocurrency, a virtual token that would allow its billions of users around the world to make electronic payments.” One of the anonymous sources informed Cheddar that Facebook is “very serious about it.”
This report comes only days after Facebook announced that they are launching a new team that is exclusively dedicated to blockchain technology. Based on who is heading up the blockchain team would indicate Facebook is extremely sure that the cryptographic system is the future. David Marcus, the Facebook executive who was in charge of the company’s Messenger app, is now leading this blockchain designated group of fewer than a dozen people. It’s rather interesting that Marcus, who is “fascinated” by the cryptocurrencies, joined the board of popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in December.
Many members of the new group are high-ranking executives including Instagram’s VP of Engineering, James Everingham, and Instagram’s VP of Product, Kevin Weil. To place that many important resources into this project shows that Facebook is certain that Blockchain can enhance their business.
Facebook, which starting studying blockchain a year ago, said they are “exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology.” So how could Facebook utilize blockchain? The obvious is that they are considering creating their own cryptocurrency to challenge other digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ehtereum, and Ripple. The less perceptible reasons are that Facebook will use blockchain technology for encrypted data storage and verify the identity of accounts. Since Marcus was the former president of PayPal, Facebook could be using blockchain for Facebook’s users to make fast and secure payments on the social network.
Even people who are not proponents of cryptocurrency such as Bill Gates, acknowledge that blockchain are promising. The Cheddar report stated that it would likely take a few years before Facebook’s work on blockchain and cryptocurrency became a reality. All hail our Facebook overlords.