If you were one of the world’s most influential companies and you wanted to introduce a cryptocurrency aimed at global domination in the digital payments arena … you might just name it GlobalCoin.
That’s what social media titan Facebook has gone and done according to a May 24th report out of the BBC that has considerably advanced the amount of publicly known information around the company’s previously shrouded “Project Libra” crypto project.
For starters, it’s been revealed that Facebook has dubbed the token GlobalCoin in their in-house conversations. Whether that name will stick as the final one for the crypto remains to be seen, but it’s a possibility until the company announces otherwise.
Moreover, it’s now known that Facebook is aiming to start GlobalCoin’s journey by launching it for users in approximately 12 countries at some point in the first quarter of 2020. That seemingly marks an expansion, insofar as the very earliest reporting around Facebook’s cryptocurrency project said it was being aimed for an initial pilot in India among WhatsApp users there.
Facebook Has Been Keen on Getting Help
Another new revelation comes in the forms of who Facebook’s leadership has been reaching out to regarding the project.
It was revealed earlier this month that the social media powerhouse had reached out to card titans Visa and Mastercard for potential support of the cryptocurrency. Courtesy of the new BBC report, we now also know that Facebook has also reached out to payments powerhouse Western Union seeking to help users interact with the coin with ease.
Other stakeholders Facebook has since chatted with? One of the world’s most influential bankers, Bank of England’s Mark Carney, and one of the world’s most influential financial bodies, the U.S. Treasury. Those conversations respectively dealt with the possibilities of the coin and relevant regulatory matters.
Notably, Facebook has apparently been designing GlobalCoin as a basketcoin — a token that is similar to a stablecoin, i.e. it mitigates price volatility concerns, but it works by being pegged to multiple assets instead of just one.
There’s no word for now on what GlobalCoin’s multiple underpinning assets could be. Back in April, New York Times correspondent Nathaniel Popper noted that Facebook appeared to be seeking $1 billion USD in venture funding as collateral to back the basketcoin.
Per Popper’s sources, Facebook’s leadership thought reaching out for outside funding was the best way to present the token going forward. As the NYT journalist said last month:
“Given that one of the big allures of blockchain projects is the decentralization, getting outside investors could help Facebook present the project as more decentralized and less controlled by Facebook.”
Earlier this year, it was also reported that the social media company had already started reaching out to cryptocurrency exchanges about listing GlobalCoin, which is set to undergo its final tests in 2019.
Project Libra Accelerates as Facebook Organizes Its Pieces
As Facebook’s GlobalCoin puts the company on course to compete with mainstream financial institutions like banks, the effort’s called for some further organizational configuring.
That’s why Facebook registered Libra Networks, a subsidiary firm that will focus on fintech and blockchain solutions, in Switzerland this May.
The entity will run the gamut when it comes to the kinds of services it will provide, as the firm’s registration said it will have an operational focus on “investing, payments, financing, identity management, analytics, big data, blockchain and other technologies.”
Of course, when you’re an enterprise as sprawling and as pivotal as Facebook, you’ll always need to have your ducks in a row — particularly when U.S. congressman come calling. U.S. senators sent the company a letter on May 9th demanding answers on how it would approach privacy issues around its new cryptocurrency venture.
The post GlobalCoin: Facebook Cryptocurrency Now Just Around the Corner appeared first on Blockonomi.
May 24, 2019 at 04:23AM https://blockonomi.com from Blockonomi http://bit.ly/2K0xi0M
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