- Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber all support the new cryptocurrency of Facebook.
- Stripe, Booking.com and MercadoLibre are part of the project
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that for its GlobalCoin cryptocurrency, a stable coin created in secrecy for more than six months, the social media giant has signed on more than a dozen backers. Each of the new backers is going to spend about $10 million in the project as part of a cryptocurrency ruling consortium. According to the Journal, Stripe, Booking.com and MercadoLibre are part of the project, although their roles are not specified in the report.
It’s been a century since the birth of bitcoin, yet customers hardly use it to pay for things— or the hundreds of other cryptocurrencies. Facebook bets that with a crypto-based payment system constructed around its gigantic social network and its billions of clients, it can alter that.
Facebook announced the launch of GlobalCoin last December, although the firm said it was looking at cryptocurrency by the end of 2017. It is anticipated that the crypto will be a stable coin operating within the messaging infrastructure of the company–WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger Facebook.
Facebook will not regulate the coin directly, nor will individual consortium members— known as the Libra Association. Some of the employees, according to individuals familiar with the configuration, could serve as “nodes” along with the scheme that checks transactions and keeps records of them, establishing a brand-new payment network.
However, Facebook has been tight-lipped about precisely what GlobalCoin is going to be used for, although the BBC proposed that Facebook might look at distributors, enabling its consumers to buy discounted products using the cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency would be used to transfer value straight from Facebook to the retailer, cutting down the middle credit card firms, which BBC indicates would help the retailers’ earnings.
The release of GlobalCoin is expected on June 18.
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