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SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook unveiled an ambitious plan on Tuesday to create an alternative financial system that relies on a cryptocurrency that the company has been secretly working on for more than a year.
The effort, announced with 27 partners as diverse as Mastercard and Uber, could face immediate skepticism from people who question the usefulness of cryptocurrencies and others who are wary of the power already accumulated by the social media company.
The cryptocurrency, called Libra, will also have to overcome concern that Facebook does not effectively protect the private information of its users — a fundamental task for a bank or anyone handling financial transactions.
But if the project, which Facebook hopes to begin next year with 100 partners, should come together, it would be the most far-reaching attempt by a mainstream company to jump into the world of cryptocurrencies, which is best known for speculative investments through digital tokens like Bitcoin and outside-the-law e-commerce, like buying drugs online.
The company has sky-high hopes that Libra could become the foundation for a new financial system not controlled by today's power brokers on Wall Street or central banks.
"It feels like it is time for a better system," David Marcus, head of Facebook's blockchain technology research, said in an interview. "This is something that could be a profound change for the entire world."
Sauce: Facebook Plans Global Financial System Based on Cryptocurrency
The effort, announced with 27 partners as diverse as Mastercard and Uber, could face immediate skepticism from people who question the usefulness of cryptocurrencies and others who are wary of the power already accumulated by the social media company.
The cryptocurrency, called Libra, will also have to overcome concern that Facebook does not effectively protect the private information of its users — a fundamental task for a bank or anyone handling financial transactions.
But if the project, which Facebook hopes to begin next year with 100 partners, should come together, it would be the most far-reaching attempt by a mainstream company to jump into the world of cryptocurrencies, which is best known for speculative investments through digital tokens like Bitcoin and outside-the-law e-commerce, like buying drugs online.
The company has sky-high hopes that Libra could become the foundation for a new financial system not controlled by today's power brokers on Wall Street or central banks.
"It feels like it is time for a better system," David Marcus, head of Facebook's blockchain technology research, said in an interview. "This is something that could be a profound change for the entire world."
Sauce: Facebook Plans Global Financial System Based on Cryptocurrency
This is it folks. I've been stating this over and over in this forum that the only way Cryptocurrency can take off is if you can get the masses to adopt it, and Facebook's reach of 1/7 of the world's population is exactly the type of power and reach needed.
Now it can still flop cause of all the privacy concerns, however the ability for people in countries that do not accept have access to credit cards and other traditional means of exchanging money on the internet to now enter the global marketing - WOW.
One of my main requirements was - you have to make it EASY for the masses. Libra can make it extremely easy to not only people on 3rd world countries to enter the global market but now small business can expand into those countries to generate new revenue and business.
Now I still believe that bitcoin will never take off with the masses (See this cryptocurrency post) cause they don't have the global reach needed to make things easier. With Facebook they've got the infrastructure to instantaneously give all their users the ability to start using Libra without needing to download some new App or complicating hash wallet nonsense.
This thing can still flop, but this is the best opportunity there is for mass adoption.
It's a bit ironic that it'll take some of the largest corporations in the world to get this done... Wasn't that what bitcoin was all about avoiding?
