*By Alex Heath*
Facebook is exploring the creation of its own cryptocurrency, a virtual token that would allow its billions of users around the world to make electronic payments, people familiar with Facebook’s plans told Cheddar.
“They are very serious about it,” said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing unannounced plans.
Facebook started studying blockchain almost a year ago, when a member of its corporate development team, Morgan Beller, began looking at how the social platform could use the emerging technology.
At the time, Beller was the only Facebook employee devoted to studying blockchain, the digital and decentralized ledger that underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Her work was thrust into the spotlight this week when Facebook announced that the vice president in charge of the Messenger app, David Marcus, would lead a new team to “explore how to best leverage blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch.”
[Marcus](https://www.facebook.com/davidm/posts/10160585531500195) leads a team of less than a dozen Facebook employees working on blockchain. Before joining the company, he was the president of PayPal, which facilitates transactions between users in Facebook’s Messenger app.
Marcus is an early Bitcoin investor, and in December he joined the board of Coinbase, which runs one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges.
Executives at Facebook regularly talk about future initiatives with their employees, and they tout the company’s 10-year roadmap in public presentations. But plans for blockchain have been omitted from that roadmap, and top executives have been tight-lipped about any plans for crypto, the people familiar with the discussions said. In an internal post earlier this week announcing the blockchain initiative to Facebook employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t explain what specifically the team would be working on.
“Like many other companies Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology," a Facebook spokesperson told Cheddar after this story was first published on Friday. "This new small team will be exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share.”
Facebook’s work on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency will likely take years to materialize. People familiar with the matter said the social network doesn’t have plans to hold a so-called initial coin offering (ICO) by offering a limited number of virtual tokens for the public to buy at a set price.
Facebook will likely need to make acquisitions in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space to develop its own virtual currency, one of the people said. Blockchain technology could also be used to help Facebook verify the identity of accounts and encrypt data.
The social platform has experimented with virtual currency before. In 2009, the company released Facebook Credits, which could be used to purchase virtual goods in popular games like Farmville. But the feature never gained traction, and Facebook shut it down two years later.
During an interview at a conference in February, Marcus [said](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/02/why-facebook-is-not-rushing-into-crypto-according-to-david-marcus.html) Facebook didn’t have plans to integrate cryptocurrency into its apps anytime soon.
"Payments using crypto right now is just very expensive, super slow, so the various communities running the different blockchains and the different assets need to fix all the issues, and then when we get there someday, maybe we'll do something,” Marcus said.
Memorial Day rang in the unofficial start of summer here in the United States -- and with it, the unofficial start of summer travel. Whether consumers traveled by air or by land, they probably experienced some form of frustration over the weekend. Flyers faced delays and cancellations, and drivers faced the most expensive gas prices ever recorded on Memorial Day. Zach Griff, Senior Aviation Reporter for the Points Guy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Next-generation gaming ecosystem Joystick recently raised $8 million in a seed round and is in the process of raising a $110 million Series A funding round. Gaming ecosystems are a relatively new type of platform in the Web3 space, allowing users to maximize their play-to-earn gaming opportunities, exchange crypto-currencies, and sell their digital assets. Joystick says its platform is flipping the current model on its head by giving players the opportunity to keep 100% of the revenue they earn. Robin Defay, co-founder and CEO of Joystick, and Michael Le, co-founder of Joystick and TikTok content creator, join Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Abe Stein, Head of Innovation at Sports Innovation Lab, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he explains why the top four spots on his company's 2022 list are European soccer clubs and discusses Sports Innovation Lab's plan to publish data on women's pro sports teams in the not-too-distant future.
Joel Birch, Co-Founder and CEO of Stacked, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he explains why he doesn't see any new catalysts that would lead to a Bitcoin rally at the moment. He also reiterates that now is a good time for long-term Bitcoin investors to buy low.
The dating app Bumble has sponsored bills and pushed lawmakers to criminalize the online practice of sending unsolicited nudes or “cyberflashing." Payton Iheme, Bumble's head of public policy for the Americas, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the app was going after the harassing behavior beyond its own platform. "Now, while we went to work internally in the company, and we created something called private detector to automatically blur those images so the user can decide if they want to see them, there's nothing for the rest of the internet," she said. "And so that's why we went to work with these laws."
The holiday weekend saw Disney+ and Netflix competing head-to-head for streaming views as the Disney behemoth kicked off the unofficial start to summer with its release of "Obi-Wan Kenobi" and Netflix responded with the first part of "Stranger Things" Season 4. The streaming giants caught the eye of Wall Street, and Seth Schachner, the managing director at consultancy Strat Americas, joined Cheddar News to break down the heavy hitters. "This is a very tough, competitive game, and I don't see it getting any easier," he said. "I think you'll probably see more consolidation."
Amid high inflation, shoppers are pinching their pennies in the grocery stores and becoming more frugal when food shopping. However, supermarkets like Kroger are pushing back against passing on the higher costs and demanding reasons for the higher food prices from suppliers.
The founder and president of Cyborg Mobile Kobie Hatcher has been on a strong trajectory to disrupt his industry with a program called The New Technologists. It's not only meant to address the diversity gap within large tech companies but also help pave the way to transform the lives of young BIPOC students. He joined Cheddar News to talk about how he's working to make a difference with the lack of diversity in tech. “There's truly no lack of talent out there. It's just identifying them and letting them know that, hey, I've been in the tech sector for over 20 years. I see you. I know what you can bring, bring it, we need it," Hatcher said.
