Facebook Is Working On a New Cryptocurrency For WhatsApp Payments (nytimes.com) 48
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Some of the world's biggest internet messaging companies are hoping to succeed where cryptocurrency start-ups have failed by introducing mainstream consumers to the alternative world of digital coins. The internet outfits, including Facebook, Telegram and Signal, are planning to roll out new cryptocurrencies over the next year that are meant to allow users to send money to contacts on their messaging systems, like a Venmo or PayPal that can move across international borders. The most anticipated but secretive project is underway at Facebook. The company is working on a coin that users of WhatsApp, which Facebook owns, could send to friends and family instantly.
The Facebook project is far enough along that the social networking giant has held conversations with cryptocurrency exchanges about selling the Facebook coin to consumers. Telegram, which has an estimated 300 million users worldwide, is also working on a digital coin. Signal, an encrypted messaging service that is popular among technologists and privacy advocates, has its own coin in the works. And so do the biggest messaging applications in South Korea and Japan, Kakao and Line. The messaging companies have a reach that dwarfs the backers of earlier cryptocurrencies. Facebook and Telegram can make the digital wallets used for cryptocurrencies available, in an instant, to hundreds of millions of users. Most of them appear to be working on digital coins that could exist on a decentralized network of computers, independent to some degree of the companies that created them. Facebook reportedly has more than 50 engineers working on their cryptocurrency. Their project is being run by former president of PayPal, David Marcus, and started last year after Telegram raised $1.7 billion to fund its cryptocurrency project. "The five people who have been briefed on the Facebook team's work said the company's most immediate product was likely to be a coin that would be pegged to the value of traditional currencies," NYT reports, citing a report from Bloomberg. "A digital token with a stable value would not be attractive to speculators -- the main audience for cryptocurrencies so far -- but it would allow consumers to hold it and pay for things without worrying about the value of the coin rising and falling." The coin should come out in the first half of the year.
The Facebook project is far enough along that the social networking giant has held conversations with cryptocurrency exchanges about selling the Facebook coin to consumers. Telegram, which has an estimated 300 million users worldwide, is also working on a digital coin. Signal, an encrypted messaging service that is popular among technologists and privacy advocates, has its own coin in the works. And so do the biggest messaging applications in South Korea and Japan, Kakao and Line. The messaging companies have a reach that dwarfs the backers of earlier cryptocurrencies. Facebook and Telegram can make the digital wallets used for cryptocurrencies available, in an instant, to hundreds of millions of users. Most of them appear to be working on digital coins that could exist on a decentralized network of computers, independent to some degree of the companies that created them. Facebook reportedly has more than 50 engineers working on their cryptocurrency. Their project is being run by former president of PayPal, David Marcus, and started last year after Telegram raised $1.7 billion to fund its cryptocurrency project. "The five people who have been briefed on the Facebook team's work said the company's most immediate product was likely to be a coin that would be pegged to the value of traditional currencies," NYT reports, citing a report from Bloomberg. "A digital token with a stable value would not be attractive to speculators -- the main audience for cryptocurrencies so far -- but it would allow consumers to hold it and pay for things without worrying about the value of the coin rising and falling." The coin should come out in the first half of the year.
No Thanks (Score:3)
Good luck with all of that, Facebook.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies aren't pegged to other currencies and are treated like an asset (because they are). Most cryptocurrencies anyone cares about are also decentralized and not under the control of any one company or group.
Trying to establish and run your own currency is one of the fastest ways to get a lot of guns pointed at you.
Re: (Score:3)
No crypto needed (Score:2)
But people can buy drugs, guns, and sex using crypto.
People can also buy drugs and sex using plain simple money.
It all depends if the country you're in considers it as something fundamentally evil that needs to be banned no matter what, or if it's just yet another market that at most needs to be regulated.
But those countries just happen to be mostly on the other side of the Atlantic pond, on our "evil-euro-communist" side...
It's easier to conduct business off the books that needs to be kept off the books.
Wha.. ?!?... no !
What part of "distributed trust" and "public ledger" don't you get?!
Well, okay. The cryptographics concepts might be a l
Re: (Score:2)
Actually was made illegal for companies to create their own currencies, when fiat currencies were created. The game here, one giant ponzi scheme, a make believe company currency, that they sell at a fixed rate, no better or worse than any other in game currency for all the various monetisations and micro transactions of triple AAA (the association of anal arseholes) gaming. If the SEC let's this by, they will have serious criminal questions to answer in the future and many countries will stomp down hard on
Re: (Score:2)
In the US, you are WRONG!
You can't create your own currency. Coupons are not currency (not even the ones with the "cash value: 1/20th of 1 cent" disclaimer that's added in so that the coupon sheet they distribute is "valued" at less than 1 cent). Video game money and Disney bucks and arcade tokens are for a specific purpose in a given venue, they're not a currency for general use.
Facebook is pushing a Facebook-controlled proxy for the US Dollar for general use. If Uncle Sam gets one whiff of this weakeni
Re: No Thanks (Score:2)
Re: No Thanks (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Can't happen. Otherwise it will be too easy to send money to Isis and other bad people and the breaking bad community.
Attempts to close down corner shop international money transfer services is in full swing because of this. I will change my mind if gold bar vending machines become legal (as they are in some Arab places) and a cryptocurrency barcode will make the machine cough up - globally.
I can see it now, Stormy gets 35K cryptocurrency units and the lawyer argues no money changed hands.
Re: (Score:2)
There's also the usual issue we've already seen with a number of companies. A cryptocurrency (blockchain) is fundamentally a distributed, trustless system that anyone can join and use. If a company wants to build a blockchain for their own closed ecosystem under their control, they have either misunderstood the idea and/or they are trying to ride the blockchain hype.
If you just want a new digital currency under central control, there are much lighter solutions than the blockchain. Meanwhile, businesses t
Follower not a leader (Score:2)
WeChat has had mobile payments for yonks.
I beats pointless cryptocurrencies i.e. wastes of electricity.
Translation: (Score:3)
Facebook wants to stick their nose into your finances as well as everything else
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook wants to stick their nose into your finances as well as everything else
For this reason alone, I will not bite. In fact, I have avoided Facebook (proper) all thing time that I do not even see the [dis]advantages.
I have not found a way to fend off WhatsAPP though. Telegram is my close alternative.
Re: Translation: (Score:1)
Waiting for the revival of Coinye (Score:1)
Trusted Face of the Internet! (Score:4, Informative)
No, they won't sell your purchase history to anyone...
Notice how (Score:2)
Notice how everyone wants their own crypto. The jp Morgan coin the Facebook coin etc. They all want total control of the entire block chain so that the can run 51% attacks and roll back transactions. They also get the issue ipo coins for the Most wealth too.
No one wants to use an existing chain but everyone wants their own gift card currency they can manipulate.
And that is what will kill crypto. Incompatible coins that need constant conversions to from dollars to be useful.
Like instant messaging incompa
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Not just removing, reporting, deboosting.
Defunding of sinful speech is the next step.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually they don't. They want a coin, but they don't want a crypto-coin. In order for it to be a crypto-coin, It's operating mechanism must have anything at all to do with cryptography. This doesn't. It's just a business-administered account like World Of Warcraft Gold or Xbox Live Points.
Show of hands! (Score:3)
Can I get so show of hands of people that will trust people with their money? Anyone? Anyone......
Good luck (Score:2)
If it doesn't have a value pegged to a major currency, it's going to be useless, like Bitcoin.
It's also going to be useless if there isn't a cheap, global means of converting "Facebook coins" into real money.
"Stable Value" (Score:2)
"A digital token with a stable value would not be attractive to speculators -- the main audience for cryptocurrencies so far -- but it would allow consumers to hold it and pay for things without worrying about the value of the coin rising and falling."
Bullshit. That means inflation will have an effect on its value.
These people failed basic economics. You're a fucking fool if you give them any money for this cryptocurrency shit.
I'm guessing the point (Score:2)
I'm guessing government will keep that from happening, and not necessarily for bad reasons. Banks are heavily regulated to prevent large ones from crashing the economy (well, heavily regulated for about 8 years until we put a batch of neo-cons in office long enough to strip away the repairs
Ethereum (Score:1)
GNU Taler (Score:2)
the only detail you need to know (Score:2)
Coincircle (Score:1)