Facebook is seeking USD 1 billion in external funding for its forthcoming stable coin that is building within the blockchain division of the company.
The company has been tight-lipped about the purpose and progress of the coin, but Facebook has so far hired at least 30 people to the division with David Marcus – former head of Messenger and previous president of PayPal, leading the division as Director of Engineering, Blockchain.
However, based on Facebook’s financial statements, the company has $10 billion in cash and cash equivalents alone—the corporation is flushed with cash. Popper speculates that because one of the blockchain’s appealing properties is decentralization, then acquiring outside investors could help “present the project as more decentralized and less controlled by Facebook.”
“One person I spoke with said that Facebook is talking about using the money as collateral for its cryptocurrency, pegged to a basket of foreign currencies held in bank accounts,” Popper wrote in the thread.
Initially reported in December by Bloomberg, that Facebook’s blockchian team has been developing a stablecoin for payments that will be used on Whatsapp, the messaging service owned by Facebook.
In addition to this new rumour that has not been confirmed by Facebook, the company has been on a hiring spree for blockchain developers and experts, as well as “promoting” the idea of “Facebook Coin” to certain cryptocurrency exchanges, as reported by media.
