Facebook and cryptocurrency have been mentioned in the same breath ever since early January 201,8 when Silicon-Valley-darling-turned-pantomime-villain Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was “studying” cryptocurrency. It seems that his year of research (and not turning up to answer UK Parliamentary questions) has paid off, with the New York Times reporting that a Facebook coin is being worked on in secret.
Facebook in Dialogue with Exchanges
The report, published Thursday, states that Facebook, Signal, and Telegram are hoping to roll out their own tokens this year, with Telegram’s slated to go live this month after 2018’s mammoth ICO. Facebook has already announced a coin to be used for remittance payments through its WhatsApp service, but this more general purpose coin is apparently in the works that could be used by friends and family through WhatsApp and Facebook.
The Times quotes people familiar with the matter as saying that the project is so far along that Facebook has already been in negotiations with cryptocurrency exchanges with regard to selling the Facebook coin to consumers. If confirmed, this news would obviously represent a huge boost for the cryptocurrency market as a whole and would go some way to silencing those who believe that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are a passing fad.
Mark my words, if Facebookcoin (or Zuckbucks) is actually listed on crypto exchanges and is made accessible to 2.5 billion people, we’re in for a helluva ride.
— Jeremy Gardner (@Disruptepreneur) February 28, 2019
Facebook’s Blockchain Hiring Frenzy
As The Block has been reporting, Facebook has been hiring blockchain engineers at a rate of knots, and it would be unlikely to think that this hiring frenzy, plus the reluctance to directly address questions on a Facebook token, is related to anything but a proprietary token. As Bloomberg reported in December last year, the coin will likely be a stablecoin, pegged to the dollar or multiple currencies, rather than being a speculative asset that could fluctuate in price, seeing as it will be used in lieu of a currency.
With little more known at present, the community will have to rely on fragments of news or leaks as the project seemingly progresses, until the genie is finally let out of the bottle.
