Over 100 Staff Now Reportedly Working On Facebook’s Crypto Project
More details are now emerging regarding high-level executives for social media giant Facebook’s crypto project, according to a report by CNBC on June 6.
According to the report, there are now 100 people known to be working on the crypto project via profiles on professional networking platform LinkedIn. Facebook is also reportedly not done hiring, with over 40 openings still available in the team’s business unit, as per its website listing.
The aim of Facebook’s new crypto project, according to advertising on its career descriptions, is to provide a public service centered on accessibility:
“Our ultimate goal is to help billions of people with access to things they don’t have now — that could be things like healthcare, equitable financial services, or new ways to save or share information.”
The head of Facebook’s blockchain-based project is David Marcus. Marcus served on the board of cryptocurrency exchange and wallet service Coinbase until recently, and previously worked as the president of PayPal.
Additionally, Facebook developer Eric Nakagawa will reportedly take the title, “head of open source.” Nakagawa has reportedly championed open source projects in the past at PyTorch artificial intelligence (AI) software. Nakagawa also previously acted as founder and CEO of popular 2000s humor website, “I Can Has Cheezburger?”
As recently reported by Cointelegraph, Facebook may relinquish control of its cryptocurrency governance to third parties, in order to provide a degree of decentralization. Additionally, Facebook will reportedly announce its secretive crypto project some time this month, at which point its employees will be allowed to take part of their salary in the platform’s native cryptocurrency.
At blockchain conference Consensus 2019, the CEO of Polychain Capital said Facebook would be wise to build its alleged stablecoin on a public, open blockchain infrastructure. CEO Olaf Carlson-Wee commented that doing so would alleviate public concern, saying:
“I think given all the problems that Facebook has had with policing their platform and things like that, I think that the strategic move for Facebook would actually be to build public infrastructure. And that public infrastructure could be incorporated onto all the Facebook platforms, which of course are proprietary. But that public infrastructure, if they don’t try to own it, I think that’s where they will have the most success.”