Monthly Archives: junio 2019

(Article published by Daniel Kuhn with same title in CoinDesk)

Facebook’s “crypto opportunity” comes with high expectations. “We believe this may prove to be one of the most important initiatives in the history of the company to unlock new engagement and revenue streams,” RBC Capital Markets’ Mark Mahaney and Zachary Schwartzman said.

The two experts expect the currency to be used for payments, commerce, applications and gaming — across Facebook’s ecosystem that includes image-based social media platform Instagram and encrypted messaging service WhatsApp. Mahaney and Schwartzman also repeated previously reported expectations that Facebook will release their currency’s white paper on June 18, following in Satoshi’s footsteps to explain the fundamental protocols that will underpin Libra, the internal codename for the project.

RBC said it plans to offer an analysis of the paper when it’s released, “to help investors analyze the underlying cryptoeconomics of the token.”

The currency is rumored to be a stablecoin backed by a number of global fiat currencies.

It has been in development for more than six months — though the company indicated it has contemplated enveloping cryptocurrency into the social network as far back as the end of 2017 — and has 100 staff working on its development. This includes two former compliance managers that migrated from Coinbase in May.

Facebook allegedly will offer employees the option to take their salary in the new currency. It has not been confirmed if the $514 billion company will offer incentive packages in GlobalCoin.

“More people will turn to bitcoin for one simple reason—bitcoin is scarce, while Facebook’s cryptocurrency is not. People will migrate over time to the most honest ledger for storing their hard-earned wealth—and that’s not fiat currencies or derivatives thereof, including Facebook’s cryptocurrency,” wrote Caitlin Long of the Wyoming Blockchain Task Force.

Now everyone is as excited about the product. Crypto-notable Charlie Shrem said: «I’m just gonna say it. I think the “FacebookCoin” is an attempt by big tech, banks and credit card companies to lure people away from Bitcoin into  “better, easier, crypto”, which is nothing more than a fiat coin being masqueraded as crypto. Millions will be fooled.»

A lobbyist from Standard Chartered will join the Facebook crypto-unit staff in September, possibly to assist with political and regulatory scrutiny in the EU. Facebook emissaries have reportedly been having lunch with the Governor of the Bank of England to see how the project may progress in the country amid Brexit.

Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber are all backing GlobalCoin to the tune of $10 million dollars. This is in addition to the $1 billion in VC funding Nathanial Popper of the New York Times has reported that Facebook is seeking, either as an investment or for collateral. For as much as Facebook has raised, the company has also acquired smart contracts producer, Chainspace, to assist development.

RBC has an outperform rating on Facebook with a price target of $250 a share. Facebook’s stock is up more than 35% this year as of Thursday’s close of $177.47 a share.

(Article published by Michael K. Spencer with same title in Medium)

Project Libra will launch soon and it will instantly change the intersection of chat and payments. It is a very interesting project by Facebook in its pivot to the monetization of encrypted chat and it’s walled garden social and attention architecture.

So here’s the crazy part about Facebook’s internal stablecoin that will help Monetize WhatsApp, which has more active users than both Instagram and Messenger.

Project Libra Sounds a Lot like the Crypto Version of PayPal

Facebook’s crypto project echoes board member Peter Thiel’s original vision for PayPal.

It’s so clear to me, with Facebook hiring PayPal people to implement this. If Facebook succeeds in scaling its blockchain payments project to its more than 2 billion users, the company will deliver on Peter Thiel’s original vision of online payments.

$19 Billion Opportunity

According to Barclays, Facebook’s cryptocurrency could be a $19 billion revenue opportunity.

Facebook’s much-hyped cryptocurrency project, dubbed Project Libra, may launch in India within a matter of months, according to a Bloomberg report. The future of the company might be less Instagram than you think and more WhatsApp. This is because how mainstream WhatsApp is in places like India and South America.

As Messenger, WhatsApp and other channels are merged, exchanging an internal stablecoin and connecting with businesses is just an epic opportunity for the future of advertising and the future of payments globally.

There’s no mystery in how mass-adoption could take place. Facebook says it’s blockchain, but it sounds a lot more like a cryptocurrency. The sort of thing it was banning Ads for not too long ago.

Project Libra is essentially Facebook’s late and limited attempt to become like WeChat. Facebook’s family of apps is so far from providing the super-app quality of Chinese apps, it shows just how far behind Silicon Valley are in terms of actual consumer centric innovation in apps. “Mini-Programs” are totally missing from Facebook, Google and Amazon’s playbook, and it shows a wide discrepancy in how Chinese innovation is out smarting them.

For the PayPal analogy however. Payments will (not could) help Facebook develop an entirely new revenue stream aside from advertising — something “sorely needed at this stage of the company’s narrative,” says Barclays internet analyst Ross Sandler on CNBC.

A Project Libra stablecoin isn’t decentralized however, it’s just another centralized digital currency without aspects of real cryptocurrencies. It’s not Bitcoin, but Facebook can get it regulated and essentially become like a global bank and peer-to-peer system which will make Venmo, Square’s Cash App, Zelle and maybe even WeChat look small in comparison. It could realistically one day disrupt Apple Pay and yes, Paypal itself.

Facebook might be the crypto version of Paypal without needing to behave like a crypto but rather a real digital currency and asset that’s blockchain based without being controversial and volatile. Project Libra has a good chance of succeeding for these reasons. It does add a next level convenience for the arriving Token Economy.

Facebook’s Project Libra will likely be the play before they acquire Coinbase. Think about to what Paypal was envsioned as. “Every one of your friends will become like a virtual, miniature ATM,” Thiel told Wired in 1999. Facebook’s blockchain project is of course led by former PayPal president David Marcus, and reportedly includes a number of other former PayPal executives.

Now that Facebook has acquired 2 Billion users it has to learn how to monetize them without just relying on super successful digital advertising. That’s how Facebook remains a generational company, though realistically it will mean Paypal, Square and many others could be under threat.

The entire future of crypto could be disrupted by this, a centralized solution making decentralization a distant dream of young people who have no clue how the real world (Wall Street, Finance, Global Economics, B2B Enterprise solutions, Cloud) works.

(Article published by Michael K. Spencer with same title in Medium)

Facebook’s pivot from advertising to a more privacy-focused community will feature among other things a blockchain based payments play. Facebook really does think we are global family, after all.

Here comes GlobalCoin. That’s the name of digital payments system that Facebook plans to deploy in “about a dozen countries by the first quarter of 2020,” according to a report Friday (May 24) from the BBC. It’s truly going to be incredible. Testing will start this year, however it’s likely to first launch in a place like London, UK.

Interestingly Facebook is expected to outline plans in more detail this summer, and has already spoken to Bank of England governor Mark Carney.

So apparently, Mark Zuckerberg is a man with a cryptocurrency plan. The Project Libra team really wants to realize PayPal’s original vision with the 2.38 Billion global citizens they have captured in Facebook’s reach, and more if you count the different penetration of apps like WhatsApp and Instagram that are popular in some surprising places.

Can GlobalCoin Disrupt Crypto?

For Facebook to get into payments makes sense, before cryptocurrencies or the Lightning Network is up and running properly. They basically want to monetize all of those users after taking their data, sharing it with their friends and making brands believe Facebook was the only and best play to do targeted ads to consumers.

Inside Facebook, the cryptocurrency is reportedly being called “GlobalCoin,” which not only hints at the company’s, well, global aims but sounds a bit like something Zuckerberg would say, a character who wears a lot of different hats in his own company, including CEO and chairman of the board.

Facebook has also sought advice on operational and regulatory issues from officials at the US Treasury. So it’s looking like stablecoins in walled gardens are going to eat up the world! Long live the era of subscriptions and paying for things with crypto, I guess?

Zuckerberg doesn’t think it’s the right time to break up Facebook. As if it’s not powerful enough, right? On top of seeking advice from banks, Facebook also reportedly called up Zuckerberg’s old pals the Winklevoss twins, who founded the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange.

Facebook will attempt to throw a lot of $ to legal proof, lobby and push its payments product, that will make a centralized global chat that much more monetizable. It’s all crystal clear what Project Libra and a GlobalCoin owned by Zuckerberg would try to accomplish.

Facebook wants to monetize WhatsApp better, and a GlobalCoin could create quite the peer-to-peer mechanism, especially in places where people don’t necessarily have access to bank accounts.

The Arrival of GlobalCoin is going to be Epic

This GlobalCoin appears to be Facebook’s attempt to create a digital currency that provides affordable and secure ways of making payments, regardless of whether users have a bank account.

The social networking site, which owns WhatsApp and Instagram, is hoping to disrupt existing networks by breaking down financial barriers, competing with banks and reducing consumer costs. So this isn’t just a threat to crypt, it’s a real threat to Square, PayPal, Stripe, Venmo, Zelle, Transferwise (the biggest FinTech startup in Europe), and so many others.

Whatever you think of Facebook’s “family of apps”, GlobalCoin is coming and it will be to make even more money off of your data, interactions, friends and shopping preferences. It’s so great to live in such a globalized world. GlobalCoin might free us from inconvenient methods of sending, sharing and accumulating digital assets for our online activities.

The currency will need to overcome numerous technical and regulatory hurdles before it can be launched. However, Facebook has a proven track record of duping regulators, deceiving consumers and defrauding businesses via its digital Ads monopoly, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be okay.