Facebook Reportedly Making Crypto Coin for WhatsApp

[Ozark]

Facebook's focus on blockchain may make sense as sources say WhatsApp might get a cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Mark Zuckerberg marked the beginning of 2018 with goals for the new year that included a focus on blockchain technology, but he didn’t provide many details on what exactly he had in mind. According to anonymous sources who spoke to Bloomberg, there’s now a project that might make use of the efforts that Facebook made with its own endeavors into the blockchain space.

WhatsApp, one of Facebook’s properties, might get a small makeover that allows users to send money to each other as a cryptocurrency. Although it won’t be a free-floating coin like Bitcoin or Ether, it will work behind a permissioned blockchain.

The digital coin will be attached to the value of the dollar to prevent the kinds of wild price swings that have so far made Bitcoin impractical for people in most economically stable countries to use in the retail and remittance sectors.

The company’s decisions through 2018 have pointed towards an eventual foray into the financial service sector since it hired David Marcus, a former PayPal executive, to head the development of its famed Messenger application. However, it seems that WhatsApp might get the makeover much sooner.

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

According to the sources, it seems that this new WhatsApp feature will be tailor-made for Indian users as an alternative to current remittance services.

This presents a major hurdle, though, as major institutions in the target country still cannot completely agree on whether cryptocurrencies are illegal or not. NASSCOM’s president was swift in saying that cryptocurrencies are illegal back at the end of October.

A later press release by the country’s Press Information Bureau only solidified this case by suggesting that the Financial Stability and Development Council will push for a ban on “private” cryptocurrencies.

Any cryptocurrency or blockchain-oriented endeavor entering India will have to face these challenges and prepare itself for, at best, a high level of scrutiny.

SOURCE