The Facebook's WhatsApp Coin
Facebook is working on a virtual currency for WhatsApp that's pegged to basket of fiat currencies, reports the New York Times. Other poular chat apps like Telegram and Signal, are also working on digital coins of their own. Largely, these chat firms think they could monetize the ecosystems through the stablecoins since ads do not live well on chat boards. I had reported this last year here: "Facebook truly likes financial services. It entered Nigerian financial sector when some banks launched Facebook Messenger banking with MasterCard. Now, it is taking it to the next level: stablecoin on WhatsApp for remittance services."
Some of the world’s biggest internet messaging companies are hoping to succeed where cryptocurrency start-ups have failed by introducing mainstream consumers to the alternative world of digital coins.
The internet outfits, including Facebook, Telegram and Signal, are planning to roll out new cryptocurrencies over the next year that are meant to allow users to send money to contacts on their messaging systems, like a Venmo or PayPal that can move across international borders.
This is indeed huge and some are already postulating that WhatsApp Coin could one day become the real thing.
So all that being said, I do think FB's crypto is interesting because it may be backed by a weighted basket of currencies, not free floating like Bitcoin. In fact (and I'm getting slightly out of my depth here) - you could sorta imagine something like this *really* taking off among FB's 2B+ userbase and one day challenging the global dependency on US Dollars, potentially crashing the global financial system. Now THAT is moving fast and breaking things :)