Over the past few months, the global crypto community has been kept on high alert thanks to the seemingly never-ending rumors of Facebook and its planned cryptocurrency. While the California based company has notably kept silent all through this time, it would seem that the social media giant is gearing up for a final launch.
New Association to Control Facebook’s Crypto
The social media giant will be divulging the details of the organization in charge of handling the operations of the native cryptocurrency, Facebook will unveil the Libra Association on June 18, and it would operate from Geneva, Switzerland.
Also, the tech giant will be launching a testnet of its blockchain, same day along with the project’s whitepaper. Citing unnamed sources, the report claims that the Libra token is currently housed on Facebook’s Libra Blockchain, with a dedicated Libra Reserve also present to provide fungibility, low inflation, and global acceptance to the asset.
Some reports have alluded that Facebook’s cryptocurrency would be called “Global Coin.” Others have given it the moniker “Libra,” while the reported association has the same connotation to it. The “Libra” name was first used by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg back in May.
The tech giant will be primarily focused on ensuring regulatory compliance, as it hopes to provide a “suitable, secure, and trusted framework” for the asset. The focus on security was one of the reasons why the tech giant got a letter from the U.S Senate Banking Committee earlier this year, and given Facebook’s checkered past with privacy and information handling; it’s not difficult to see why this could be a sticking point.
For a tech company with billions of dollars in yearly revenue, Facebook is leaving no stones unturned in its quest to ensure the success of this crypto asset. From hiring seasoned experts to sealing strategic partnerships, the company’s footsteps are all over the place, even though no one from the firm has come out to give so much as an update on the matter.
Earlier in the week, as Blockonomi reported, the social media giant has secured the backing of some powerful tech companies. These include the likes of Uber, Stripe, VISA, MasterCard, and PayPal, all of whom have all agreed to partner with the social media giant for the project, with each company investing a tidy sum of $10 million in seed investments.
Will Chainlink be involved?
Last week, Google released a post on their Google Cloud blog, detailing how off-chain data can be brought into smart contracts using the Chainlink decentralized oracles platform. This saw the LINK token rise over 60% on the news and helped validate it in a lot of people’s minds.
There has been a lot of speculation, the Facebook crypto will also be using LINK in some capacity. As the coin will be a “Basket” coin, pegged to several different currency prices, they could need a secure and decentralized way to pull in these prices, something the Chainlink platform has been designed for.
Another crumb, is that Facebook’s Blockchain Director of Engineering, Evan Cheng, is also a Technical Advisor to Chainlink.
There are lots more connections, summarized in this tweet thread:
https://twitter.com/GreenSockMonkey/status/1138434925072400385
Telegram could beat Facebook to the punch
It’s worth noting that Facebook could be facing some stern competition before it launches. Telegram, a popular messaging platform, could have some its tokens sold to retail investors later this month. The sale is being facilitated by cryptocurrency exchange Liquid and Gram Asia, one of the accredited investors who took part in its two-phased ICO sale.
Unlike Facebook, Telegram has been rather chatty about its crypto project and how it would impact global payments. It recently provided updates on the launch of its Telegram Open Network (TON) testnet client and the Fift programming language. Still, if the recent report is accurate, we could finally get some clarity from Facebook this week.
