Edition of The Wall Street Journal that the social network Facebook is preparing its own cryptocurrency, which will be backed by cash dollars. And they will, as expected, pay it, including for users viewing advertisements. This first became known last year, and this year new information has appeared.
The project is called Project Libra (previously called Facebook stablecoin) and is currently being developed in secrecy. The company has already held talks with Visa, Mastercard and payment operator First Data to secure $1 billion in token backing. This will stabilize the cryptocurrency rate.
The social network is also negotiating with dozens of online trading companies and mobile payment services about accepting Project Libra tokens as payments. At the same time, some are invited to become investors. As noted, the commission for merchants in the Facebook payment system will be lower than typical for credit card processing. Typically they are 2β3%.
The most interesting thing is that the company intends to pay users for viewing advertisements. Functionally, this will be similar to the loyalty programs of regular retailers. This is expected to allow Facebook to become the largest cryptocurrency operator in history.
There is no word yet on launch dates. But we can assume that this system will become part of the companyβs new policy in terms of improving the social network and branded services. By the way, similar systems exist or are being prepared by others. You can recall the Apple Card from Apple and Goldman Sachs, Amazon Pay and the TON blockchain platform for the Gram cryptocurrency based on the Telegram messenger.