Social networking giant Facebook has on-boarded two new compliance experts, who previously worked at United States major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Mikheil Moucharrafie joined Facebook as compliance officer after almost four years of working at Coinbase. At the exchange, Moucharrafie held positions such as support analyst and quality assurance tester, anti-money laundering (AML)/bank secrecy investigator, compliance manager, and risk manager. Jeff Cartwright spent nearly five years at Coinbase as a compliance manager, head of internal audit, and director of regulatory risk and exams. Prior to joining Coinbase, Cartwright was involved in AML consultancy at Big Four firm KPMG and AML compliance …

Blockchain Capital partner Spencer Bogart claimed that the crypto endeavors of social media giant Facebook could result in the cryptocurrency user base doubling or tripling. Bogart made his remarks during an interview with Bloomberg published on May 8. In the interview, Bogart confirmed that he thinks Facebook Coin — whether it will be a stablecoin or a different kind of crypto asset — will act as a stepping stone, introducing the masses to the idea of cryptocurrencies. He explained that once people own Facebook Coin: “It’s like being on the internet; so people can spin out and they can start …

Chinese social media giant and payment service provider WeChat banned cryptocurrency transactions in its payments policy. Dovey Wan, founding partner of crypto investment firm Primitive, tweeted the news on May 7. The tweet contained a screenshot of the policy changes, which intimates that users who engage in cryptocurrency trading will have their accounts terminated. Wan expressed concern that since most over-the-counter transactions are happening in WeChat, “this may impact local liquidity to quite some extent.” WeChat is a popular messaging and payments service provider in China, also featuring game integrations. The updated rules — coming into force on May 31 …

Social media giant Facebook acquired the rights to the “Libra” trademark for its secretive cryptocurrency project, crypto news website The Block reported on May 3. The Block claims that a source familiar with the matter confirmed that Facebook is recruiting financial firms to develop its own crypto and that the project’s codename and product name is Libra. Moreover, documents released by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and filed in June 2018 reveal that the company has evidently acquired the rights to the “Libra” trademark. More precisely, while the owner of the filing is a limited liability company that …

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Christian Catalini is on leave and working on the development of Facebook coin, cryptocurrency news Coindesk reported on May 3. Per the report, two anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation told Coindesk about Catalini’s collaboration with Facebook. Catalini — the Theodore T. Miller Career Development Professor at MIT — is reportedly one of the more prominent researchers in the field of token economics. He recently co-authored a report with University of Toronto professor Joshua Gans on initial coin offerings and the value of tokens. Earlier this week, news broke that social media giant Facebook …

Facebook is controversial, if nothing else. The world's fifth-biggest company by market cap, it's also the biggest social network by a comfortable margin. Yet, despite the fact that most of us use it, we've become increasingly suspicious of what it's been doing with our personal data. Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal (and probably long before), we've feared that such data isn't particularly secure or private, so we've been pushing back against the social media giant, as witnessed with last year’s #DeleteFacebook campaign. But at the same time, those with an interest in cryptocurrency also have an appreciation that, for …

The most popular social media platform in Russia, VKontakte (VK), is considering developing its own cryptocurrency, local news outlet RNS reported on March 28. Per the report, an unspecified person familiar with the company’s plans told the outlet that the project involves the creation of individual cryptocurrency accounts for all the users of the platform. Still, the article also claims that the firm has not yet made a final decision about whether or not to launch the coin. According to the report, RNS has obtained a presentation from the VK that shows how one of the ways users would be …

Update: On Jan. 18, Google confirmed to Decenter that “Ethereum” has been blacklisted as a keyword “regardless of the nature of the service that is being promoted,” as the startup’s CEO Andrej Cvoro told Cointelegraph over email. On Jan. 10, Serbia-based smart contract auditing startup Decenter reported that Google has blacklisted keywords mentioning Ethereum (ETH) on its advertising platform, Google Ads. Google Ads: We can’t confirm that Ethereum is eligible to trigger ads, see our policy Specifically, the startup tweeted that they saw “a hard stop” on Google Ads containing the keyword “Ethereum” starting from Jan. 9. Decenter also tagged …

American libertarian political commentator Dave Rubin has announced he is turning to Bitcoin (BTC) in lieu of the crowdfunding platform Patreon, in protest against the latter’s alleged censorship practices. Rubin made his announcement on Twitter Jan. 6. In an interview with the Washington Examiner last week, Rubin explained his decision to leave Patreon — which reportedly accounts for “between 60-70 percent” of his funding — as taking “a stand against the ever-moving encroachment on free speech, on free expression” on mainstream platforms. Rubin, who has a background in stand-up comedy, is the creator and host of The Rubin Report — …

The startup aims to start a “financial revolution” by creating its own social network, where users can earn tokens and spend them by hiring top investment professionals and investing in the products and services they choose. The idea of the Huddl project is to break the traditional investment model, in which the company says that premium products are available only for wealthy people or for institutional investors. The Huddl team says the main reason that motivated them to build the platform was the loss of trust in traditional financial services and social networks, and the lack of utility in current …

On Dec. 20, Bloomberg reported that Facebook is making a stablecoin for WhatsApp users. The cryptocurrency will reportedly be used for money transfers made within the messaging app and will focus on the Indian market. The move provides a curious juxtaposition for the social media giant, which banned cryptocurrency-related advertising across its network back in January and then partly reversed it in June. Here’s how Facebook’s relationship with cryptocurrencies and blockchain has been developing in 2018 — overall, it has been a patchy road. January: Zuckerberg is being bullish about crypto; Facebook bans crypto ads On Jan. 4, Mark Zuckerberg …

On November 3, renowned Bitcoin advocate, Andreas Antonopoulos, took to Twitter to claim that URL shortening service, Bit.ly (Bitly), had blocked crypto-related links from his upcoming book. Cointelegraph has reached out to Bitly, and learned that the links “had been inadvertently blocked,” while the company has reportedly resolved the issue. Nevertheless, crypto-related bans still exist in mainstream media. ‘Why are you blocking links to cryptocurrency sites?’ Antonopoulos, author of several well-known guides to cryptocurrencies, including “Mastering Bitcoin”, called out Bitly on Twitter, revealing details of the block. The company allegedly blacklisted over 200 links featured in “Mastering Ethereum,” Antonopoulos’ new …