Facebook is launching team dedicated to Blockchain

The new activity of the world’s most famous social network should be led by David Marcus, from Messenger

Source: Recode

What is blockchain? And how should Facebook use it? Finding answers to those questions is now the responsibility of David Marcus, the Facebook executive who, until this week, ran the company’s messaging app, Messenger.

Marcus is leaving Messenger to take on a new internal team dedicated to exploiting blockchain technology, according to several sources familiar with the subject. The team will be small at launch with less than a dozen people, but will include some key Instagram executives who are joining Marcus: Instagram vice president of engineering, James Everingham, and vice president of Instagram products , Kevin Weil.

Messenger product manager Stan Chudnovsky will take over the Messenger app and its team. David Marcus is a past president of PayPal and has a lot of experience in payments. Blockchain, in turn, is the technical basis for the cryptocurrencies, which are part of the new economy.

Facebook’s decision to seek Blockchain technology will certainly add some validity to the encryption industry, but that does not mean that Facebook will create its own cryptocurrency. Although, Marcus has a personal interest in digital coins, however. He joined the exchange council of the Coinbase cryptocurrency in December.