Facebook currency road

After being accused of leaking 50 million user data without permission, Facebook was pushed to the forefront. How to use the blockchain technology to get the user's personal data out of the fate of the centralized company's main body, and become a topic of discussion between the currency circle and the Internet giant.

In fact, as early as last May, Facebook took the initiative to embrace blockchain technology. Recruiting foreign troops, the internal restructuring department, set up a 12-person team led by Facebook's former Messenger head DavidMarcus, and explored the blockchain.

When the news of Facebook's internal secret team layout blockchain was exposed, at first, it was widely believed that Facebook would try to use blockchain technology to let user data be chained and protect user privacy.

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However, with the outflow of multi-party sources, the mindset of Facebook's issuance of stable coins into the payment market is becoming more and more obvious.

Recently, Laura McCracken, head of financial services and payment partners in the Nordic market, said that the white paper explaining the application of cryptocurrency will be released on June 18.

Is it a gimmick or an innovation? Four days later, if Facebook can publish its cryptocurrency white paper “on time,” the Internet giant’s blockchain layout will be clearer.

FB aiming stable currency

After a number of overseas media reported on Facebook's upcoming currency issue, discussions around the Internet giant became a topic of concern for the currency circle.

Last December, according to Bloomberg News, Facebook has begun to study a stable currency linked to the US dollar, which will be the first to land on the company's WhatsApp, India may become a pilot area. WhatsApp is an application that Facebook acquired in 2014 with a huge investment of 19 billion US dollars, with over 200 million users in India.

In the past six months, the latest news from Facebook shows that its part of the payment field is not limited to the US dollar.

Recently, Facebook's Nordic market financial services and payment partner leader Laura has inadvertently revealed that the cryptocurrency issued by Facebook has been confirmed to be linked to multiple currencies, rather than a single US dollar, in order to effectively prevent price fluctuations.

In addition, she said that the name of the stable currency is Libra, rather than GlobalCoin, previously reported by Bloomberg. "Facebook wants to use Libra to implement payment functions on its products including Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp."

However, the Facebook blockchain team then contacted the launching media TechCrunch, hoping it would remove the news. At the same time, the official declined to comment on any information about the Libra project. A company spokesperson claimed that if there is a problem with the partner, the release time may change, and their goal is to officially issue cryptocurrency in 2020.

TechCrunch reports that Facebook will issue a white paper on the 18th of this month

Although Facebook did not give an accurate white paper release time, it is certain that in the coming year, the Internet will be able to see the digital currency of this Internet giant hair.

This is not the first time Facebook has tried to release digital assets. As early as 10 years ago, the company issued a score similar to Tencent Q coins "Facebook Credits." At the time, Credits could buy and sell virtual goods in the game.

At that time, Credits did not bring much influence. After two years, Facebook stopped using the points.

Today, 10 years later, Facebook is aiming at the payment field of the blockchain track, becoming another traditional giant in the field after JP Morgan Chase.

JPMoin of JPMorgan Chase is used for cross-border liquidation, and from the known information, Facebook's stable currency is more inclined to 2C scenarios, achieving zero-cost transfers. “They are still working with multiple e-commerce giants and offline merchants to make It is able to accept Facebook's cryptocurrency payments and also offers a registration bonus."

According to The Information, Facebook also plans to deploy a cryptocurrency ATM so that users can directly exchange legal and traditional assets.

Layout blockchain after data breach scandal

Looking back at the history of Facebook's entry into the blockchain track, a departmental restructuring in May last year was considered the beginning of the company's layout blockchain industry.

DavidMarcus, the head of Messenger, took the lead in setting up an internal team of less than 12 people. He was originally responsible for the chat client work on Facebook. His experience was not related to mobile payment, and he was involved in the blockchain at the end of 2017.

In 2008, David founded Zong, a mobile payment company. Three years later, Zong was acquired by overseas payment giant PayPal, and he subsequently entered the core management of PayPal. In 2014, David joined Facebook and was responsible for the management of Messenger. In December 2017, in the wave of bitcoin prices soaring to historical highs, David joined the overseas wallet giant Coinbase and was a member of the board of directors of the company.

Since then, David has chosen to return to his old club Facebook. Among the teams he led, there are technical coffee makers including Instagram Engineering Vice President James and Product Vice President Kevin.

Two months later, Facebook re-raised and established a blockchain special research group, and senior engineer Evan Cheng was appointed as the technical director. Previously, Evan had long focused on blockchain technology and worked as a consultant in two blockchain projects, Zilliqa and Chainlink.

At the same time, the recruitment of blockchain technical talents has also appeared on Facebook's official website.

A series of actions prove that Facebook is actively embracing the blockchain technology, and it is followed by speculations from the outside world: How will the Internet giant, Facebook, realize the blockchain technology?

At the time, a sudden incident was that Facebook was caught in a scandal of user data leaks.

In the first half of 2018, Facebook was accused of leaking 50 million user data to Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis company that controls the US election. It has provided services to support the Brexit free group, inducing people, and indirectly. Accept excess funds from the official Brexit group in the UK.

This incident has put Facebook in an unprecedented crisis of trust. The founder Zuckerberg had to attend the US hearing, in front of 44 senators, constantly answering how they would rectify to ensure the security of user data.

Zuckerberg at the hearing site (picture from the network)

Facebook's stock soared. On the day it announced its second-quarter earnings, the company's share price fell more than 20%, and its market value shrank by more than $120 billion.

The scandal continues and the stock price is in a hurry. Some analysts even predict that the social giant will die. They believe that Facebook is aging and has lost its appeal to users.

Therefore, the action of Facebook's investment in blockchain development was interpreted by the outside world as a way to solve the privacy of users. Even this move was directly called “self-help”.

The currency scene directly refers to the payment

As a giant who has been cultivating the Internet for many years, Facebook's entry has made some investors in the currency see the signal of the "regular army" entering the market; the chain believes that following the blockchain is not a bad thing for Facebook.

Erin, a blockchain technologist at Wired Magazine, believes that Zuckerberg is referring to encryption technology to boost employee morale, staying at the forefront of hot technology, and will be very helpful to employees, "in Silicon Valley Advertising technology is not cool, and encryption technology is fashionable."

“Now Facebook can make effective use of this and integrate the more credible scenes into the blockchain. Is there anything wrong with this?” Erin asked.

When the outside world understands Facebook's blockchain actions as an intention to change applications and ensure user data security, more and more news shows that Facebook seems to want to become a "central bank" in the world of cryptocurrency.

For the reasons for the change, some insiders analyzed that Facebook has 2.7 billion social users, and the amount of data is huge. At present, there is no suitable blockchain solution to complete the decentralized real-time transmission.

Zuckerberg once said in public that one of the methods of decentralization is to encrypt messages and deliver independently. "I firmly believe that decentralization of power to individuals has a very broad meaning," but he also knows that blockchain technology It's more difficult to empower social applications. "Maybe you have enough resources to do this."

Zuckerberg stresses that the future is private (images from the Internet)

The technological breakthrough is difficult to complete in a short period of time, and Token's financial landing has blossomed everywhere in the blockchain field, and the latter may be more feasible.

In April of this year, Zuckerberg emphasized at a developer conference that payment is an important area of ​​Facebook. "Cryptographic currency may be one of the important businesses in the field of Facebook layout."

Bloomberg reported that the existence of Facebook's stable currency is to eliminate credit card fees, while eliminating the price fluctuations of BTC, ETH and other crypto assets, in addition, it will also be integrated into Facebook's revenue core "advertising system" to reward user behavior There is a way for users to purchase goods through this stable currency.

Is Facebook cuddling blockchain technology a gimmick or an innovation? After 4 days, if Facebook can publish its cryptocurrency white paper on time, the answer will be clearer.

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