Four technology and Payments giants - Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Uber - have invested in Facebook’s upcoming cryptocurrency project, The Wall Street Journal revealed.
According to the June 13 report, the companies formed a consortium to govern the digital currency, and each has invested $10 million in the social media giant’s project.
Other companies, including Stripe, Booking.com, and MercadoLibre, are part of the project. However, the publication did not specify their exact role on it.
Though Facebook did not announce anything officially, media reports revealed that the company is developing a stable digital currency, which is expected to be the native token across its social media platforms - Messanger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
The recent report also detailed that neither Facebook nor the consortium will control the digital currency, and against the investments, members can run nodes for the decentralized payments network.
Uber, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Facebook, JP Morgan, Fidelity, ICE, etc...big institutions continue to build (some) exposure to #crypto. Only a matter of time before every fund has 1-5% allocation in $BTC. https://t.co/kOUr23dQXr
— John Todaro (@JohnTodaro1) June 13, 2019
The decentralized project can be a massive success for the Menlo Park-headquartered company as a Barclays analyst earlier predicted that it could bring as much as $19 billion to the company in revenue each year.
An earlier report also suggested that the social media platform is aiming to raise $1 billion for ambitious its crypto projects.
Bringing crypto to the mass
Facebook’s dive into crypto can give the industry a massive boost in terms of digital currency adaptation. According to Statista, Facebook has more than 2.3 billion users across the globe, while it's subsidiary platform WhatsApp gets 500 million daily active users. However, the company’s booming platform is Instagram, a photosharing platform, which attracts around 1 billion users a month.
Finance Magnates earlier reported that the California-based company is constantly increasing the strength of its Blockchain team and is currently standing at 100 employees. The firm is even considering to pay its employees in cryptocurrencies.
