As Facebook Libra continues to make headlines, some early Bitcoin moguls are suggesting that other top tech companies will soon follow.
Reporting today by Cointelegraph reports that in a CNBC interview July 9, the Winklevoss twins, wunderkinds of crypto who were among the young investors most enriched by early BTC volume, suggested that all four companies in what they called the FANG group (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google) will have cryptocurrency projects in place by 2021.
That’s soon!
It’s a compelling argument that goes directly to the heart of how America’s technology industry works, in an age where that industry is quite consolidated and legislator prepare to launch an anti-trust probe into the same set of firms to look at how much consolidated power each one has over tech productivity and markets.
Already American officials are worried about the impact of Facebook’s coin, but Google, Netflix and Amazon could also have their own disruptive impacts, to put it mildly.
Here’s another interesting point, though, about the Winklevoss projections – as with many interesting stories, part of what they say is what they leave out.
In noting this potential, the Winklevoss twins deliberately excluded Apple, which many know as part of the group denominated by the acronym FAANG and not FANG.
Is it the FANG group, or the FAANG group?
A little digging shows that both terms were coined by Jim Cramer, market guru par excellance, and that he shifted between them based on his evaluation of Apple as a major tech player.
So for shorthand, investors could refer to FANG when they want to include Apple, and FAANG when they don’t, but that’s still a little unwieldy.
The difference between FANG and FAANG only really changes the equation in terms of whether Apple’s own offerings might have the same an enormous impact that people are worried about with Facebook Libra. But those are real concerns.
In reality, it only takes one of these projects by a tech giant to disrupt the economy through widespread collective action.
For instance, here’s what this might look like – Facebook Libra finally becomes implemented. People start trading goods and services through the Facebook platform using Libra. Market capitalization expands rapidly. In trying to mediate between fiat currency and crypto, the regulators are overwhelmed. Economic uncertainty forces banks to reevaluate how they work with depositors.
None of this is particularly likely to happen, but all of it might, which is why regulators want to keep an eye on tech developments, whether they call it FAANG or just FANG.
