As we all know, Facebook is the largest social media network in the world, with over two billion users across many different platforms. Facebook was launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, followed by his Harvard College roommates. Since then, the number of users and usage of the platform has continued to grow.
Even though last year was a tough year for Facebook with a loss of nearly $9 billion due to all the privacy issues and personal information leaks, the company has come back strong in the top quartile of 2019. Facebook is currently the 6th most valuable company in the world with $413.25 billion.
Since Facebook's breach made headlines, with all the personal information leaks and security issues, they have made huge changes in the system providing users with security of their personal information as well as full encryption of their messages. In this way, they plan to make sure that Facebook does not know what users are writing to each other.
Facebook obviously has no intention of stopping, as information was recently made public that the company is secretly working on developing its own crypto-currency. As mentioned, the project is still secret and not much information is available. Reports indicate that Facebook has invested serious resources (money and manpower) in a payment system and that a serious team is working day and night on a public blockchain project. The company has collaborated with many financial and technology companies around the world that are researching bitcoin and crypto-currencies.
This information has set off a fire in all the major financial institutions, as Facebook begins to develop a rival for bitcoin. When we analyze the crypto-currency market, we can see why this could be the next main thing that will start the process of extinction of real money. When bitcoin was launched 10 years ago, it went from zero to 40 or 100 million users (estimates are rough), and financial experts compare it to Facebook with billions of daily users.
As we've seen with other crypto-currencies, they've struggled to maintain a stable value of their currency, which can bring the project to its knees. Meanwhile, Facebook has begun planning to raise funds to serve as collateral for its crypto-currency through its many platforms and keep the value of its currency as stable as possible. The company plans to make money with this currency, using the messaging app WhatsApp as a digital payments network.
Facebook has also joined the new project. The company is recruiting about 100 software engineers who will be based in London and provide additional support in Dublin. Former PayPal president David Marcus is being hired by Facebook and placed in charge of the company's blockchain division.
Their new system will certainly be a rival to the current crypto-currencies. Since one of the biggest companies in the world has decided to invest in crypto-currencies, this could be something revolutionary and change the way the world works, which won't be strange from Facebook, as they already changed the world once. Facebook has not announced any information about the new project, but experts are analyzing the company's moves, and it is obvious that it is working on something big. The company said that it is looking for new applications for the new technology on crypto-currencies. Experts cannot yet specify how this system will work and how people will be able to get their crypto-currencies.
If Facebook develops some kind of crypto-currency, its path will be much easier compared to the crypto-currencies that started this horse race. We can only imagine what the future holds. Maybe we will pay with our smart devices using some sort of Facebook currency to buy groceries. For now, we have to wait and maybe witness the next big thing that could shape the future of our finance.