It’s taken a while, but Facebook’s brand-new cryptocurrency project is quickly gathering steam.
Today, we have news that no less than four massive market-movers have signed onto the Facebook coin project as backers with $10 million each in a fund related to dealing with the coin which is now code named “Libra.”
Credit card brands Visa and MasterCard, along with PayPal and Uber, have all become some of the big-name backers of a white paper set to be published June 18. Others include Stripe and Booking.com ( of Booking.yeh fame.)
The number of employees involved in Libra’s debut has also been updated – where parties in the know reported 50 employees at work last week, that number has now been rounded up to 100.
We have less than a week until the white paper launch date, and it seems that things are proceeding accordingly.
Having this much funding is certainly a concrete step in the process.
All of this quick activity has traders wondering how Facebook’s stablecoin is going to affect other altcoins or even Bitcoin itself.
“Definitely that shall slaughter many altcoins,” writes user cateo turex in a comment on a Cointelegraph story covering the news this morning. “Forget massive adoption of your loved coin, Facebook Coin will eat the cake. Buy Bitcoin only….”
In an interview on Yahoo Finance, tech editor Dan Howley talked about Facebook’s likely strategy.
“They’re working with all of these different companies (to amass funding)” Howley said. “It’s interesting to see Facebook getting into this.”
While we don’t yet know if the Facebook coin will be mined like Bitcoin, Howley said, we know that it is likely to be used both inside and outside of the platform.
“It will be a form of currency,” he said, speculating that perhaps the move is meant to get more average people involved in crypto assets.
Keep an eye on emerging news about Libra next week!
