Is Facebook About To Release Their Own Cryptocurrency?

Earlier this year, Facebook and other social media platforms hit the headlines after it was announced that they were banning all advertisements that were linked with ICO’s, but rumours are now flying that a Facebook cryptocurrency might be coming sooner than we ever thought. It has been announced that Facebook is seriously considering creating their own cryptocurrency with the aim of allowing its users to make electronic payments. Whilst Facebook have always been very open when it comes to their roadmap, it has never featured blockchain technology, because, they have instead chosen to remain tight lipped about this latest development. However, earlier this week, they did announce the plans to employees, with a spokesperson saying;

“Like many other companies Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology. This new small team will be exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share.”

Those on the inside have said the Facebook, unsurprisingly has no plans to hold an initial coin offering, and will not be launching a cryptocurrency in this coming year. Another source went on to explain that Facebook will likely use an existing blockchain and the developments in cryptocurrencies in order to create their own. They believe that it could be used for more than payments, and the technology could then assist the company in identity verification and data encryption. David Marcus, the man behind Facebook Messenger has been overseeing development since 2014, tasked a small group of people to explore the potential applications of blockchain technology. He said;

“I’m setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage Blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch.”

It should be noted that Marcus has a keen interest in cryptocurrencies, and is not only an investor of Bitcoin, but also joined the Coinbase board six months ago. Despite these recent plans, just a few months ago in February, Marcus said that he had no plans to integrate cryptocurrency into its applications, saying;

“Payments using crypto right now is just very expensive, super slow, so the various communities running the different blockchains and the different assets need to fix all the issues, and then when we get there someday, maybe we’ll do something.”

Although it would appear that this has all changed now, time will tell whether a Facebook coin will appear or not.