Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

World domination, phase two: Facebook ponders its own cryptocurrency

Jayce Wagner
By

After forming an internal team dedicated to blockchain technologies, Facebook is reportedly jumping into cryptocurrency with both feet. Speaking with anonymous sources close to Facebook, Cheddar claims the social media giant is considering the release of its own virtual token for electronic payments.

“They are very serious about it,” an anonymous source told Cheddar.

Recommended Videos

This news comes just days after Facebook’s internal blockchain team went public. Headed up by Messenger chief David Marcus, the new team will be exploring how blockchain technologies could be used to improve Facebook.

Related

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

It’s important to point out that Marcus is a cryptocurrency evangelist, as evidenced by his early investments in Bitcoin. He also recently joined the board of Coinbase, a popular cryptocurrency exchange. When asked if Facebook would be integrating cryptocurrency into its apps anytime soon, Marcus mentioned that he thinks cryptocurrencies have ample room to improve their effectiveness.

“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,” Marcus said in an interview with CNBC.

Let’s put all this in context. This is big news if it turns out that Facebook is serious about potentially developing its own cryptocurrency. A “Facebook Coin” would have the potential to become the premier cryptocurrency, with Facebook’s massive number of daily active users. Creating and controlling a universal currency could put Facebook into a unique position going forward.

Already under congressional scrutiny for its privacy missteps, the development of its own cryptocurrency to rival Bitcoin, Ethereum, and even the U.S. dollar could attract the watchful eye of federal regulators.

Not to mention, if Facebook does in fact intend to develop its own cryptocurrency, it also casts the recent expulsion of all cryptocurrency-related advertisements from the platform in a particularly nefarious light.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jayce Wagner
Jayce Wagner
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A staff writer for the Computing section, Jayce covers a little bit of everything -- hardware, gaming, and occasionally VR.
Facebook says iOS 14’s new privacy tools could harm its ad business
apple ios 14 beta hands on review siri icon

Apple has made it even more difficult for developers to mine your data on iOS 14. One of the new additions prevents advertisers from covertly tracking you across nearly all apps and websites, and Facebook, for one, is not looking forward to it.

On Facebook’s second-quarter follow-up earnings call, David Wehner, the company’s chief financial officer, called the forthcoming update a “headwind” and said it will “make it harder for app developers and others to grow using ads on Facebook and, really, outside of Apple, to some extent.”

Read more
Facebook audit finds it’s not doing enough to protect civil rights
mark zuckerberg speaking

Facebook’s decision to not fact-check political posts has left its platform vulnerable to misuse by politicians to interfere with voting and suppress civil rights, according to a two-year audit of the company’s policies and practices by civil rights expert Laura W. Murphy and Megan Cacace.

The 100-page evaluation says Facebook repeatedly contradicted its own policies -- enabling malicious actors to abuse its platform for spreading hate, discrimination, and more. The review adds that the social network’s executives on numerous occasions failed to take into account civil rights standards and contradicted its own policies in the name of free expression.

Read more
Study: Facebook is skimping on moderation, and it’s harming the public
facebook ftc fine not enough header

A new report from the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights alleges that Facebook and other social media companies (Twitter and YouTube are also mentioned specifically) are outsourcing too much of their moderation to third-party companies, resulting in a workforce of moderators who are treated as “second-class citizens,” doing psychologically damaging work without adequate counseling or care.

Most disturbingly, the report points out how a lax attitude toward moderation has led to “Other harms -- in some cases, lethal in nature ... as a result of Facebook’s failure to ensure adequate moderation for non-Western countries that are in varying degrees of turmoil. In these countries, the platform, and/or its affiliated messaging service WhatsApp, have become important means of communication and advocacy but also vehicles to incite hatred and in some instances, violence.”

Read more