Facebook Targets $1 Billion Investment in Cryptocurrency Project

Social media behemoth, Facebook, is looking to attract venture capital (VC) investment into its proposed cryptocurrency project, reports New York Times (NYT) contributor Nathaniel Popper. The company is reportedly looking to raise as much as $1 billion for its digital token project.

Making Facebook Coin Less Centralized

Popper announced the news via his Twitter handle on April 8, 2019, claiming inside sources at the company say Facebook wants to get VC firms to invest in the project. According to these anonymous sources, the social media giant is targeting as much as $1 billion in investments to launch its digital token project.

Update on Facebook's cryptocurrency: Sources tell me that Facebook is now looking to get VC firms to invest in the Facebook cryptocurrency project we reported on earlier this year. I hear they are targeting big sums — as much as $1b.

— Nathaniel Popper (@nathanielpopper) April 8, 2019

For Popper, opening up the fundraising project to outside investors might be Facebook’s way of creating an aura of decentralization for the project. When the news of a proposed “Facebook Coin” emerged late last year, several critics declared that given the company’s antecedents, the token project wouldn’t have any semblance of decentralization.

An excerpt from Popper’s Twitter thread on the matter reads:

“One person I spoke with said that Facebook is talking about using the money as collateral for its cryptocurrency. Facebook has been designing the coin to keep a stable value, pegged to a basket of foreign currencies held in bank accounts.”

Per previous BTCManager reports, Facebook’s plan to launch a digital token is something of an open secret. However, beyond the surface, not much is known definitively about the target market of the “Facebook Coin.”

One popular theory is that the company’s digital token will be a stablecoin targeted at the $69 billion Indian remittance market. This plan involves money transfers within the company’s apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. Analysts at Barclays say the project could generate as much as $19 billion in revenue for the company by 2021.

Anti-Crypto to Developing its Virtual Currency

If “Facebook Coin” becomes a reality, it would mean a complete 180 from a company that initially took steps to censor cryptocurrency content on its platform.

However, some might suggest that such actions were taken to prevent its platform from contributing to the success of competitors given that it had cryptocurrency-related plans of its own.

Already, the company has acquired a few blockchain startups like Chainspace. Reports indicate that the digital token could be launched by Q3 2019 and that Facebook is already in talks with a few exchange platforms to list the proposed cryptocurrency token.