Facebook-Stellar Partnership Reports Take U-Turn

Facebook has been once in news as reports of its partnership with Stellar foundation emerged. Recent reports suggested that the discussion was there to work out plans regarding how Facebook would be using the blockchain technology for developing its own native digital currency to facilitate payments on its messenger application.

Some of the internal sources, who refused to be named, said that Facebook wants to fork in the Stellar blockchain and develop its own blockchain platform which can host its native cryptocurrency. The sources also told Business Insider that  “it would make sense for Facebook to record payments transactions onto a distributed ledger like Stellar.”

The publication also noted that Facebook is heavily strategizing on expanding its blockchain plans ahead. Three months back in a word with Cheddar, a Facebook spokesperson said: “Like many other companies Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology. This new small team will be exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share.”

However, on August 10, Cheddar published another report denying what all Business Insider reported. Cheddar quoted a Facebook spokesperson saying that the social media giant is “not engaged in any discussions with Stellar, and we are not considering building on their technology.”

These two contrasting reports has caused some sort of uncertainty in this matter, however, last month the company spearheaded its blockchain plans by appointing Evan Cheng as the director of engineering.

In May 2018, WorldCoinIndex reported that the company has also appointed Davis Marcus, the former head of Messenger to head the company’s new blockchain division. Much recently, Marcus also stepped down from the board of directors at Coinbase, to avoid conflict of interest on working with Facebook.

Marcus said that his position as the head of Facebook’s blockchain strategy was overlapping too much with his role at Coinbase, and he also thanked Coinbase for accepting his withdrawal from its board saying: “Getting to know Brian [CEO of Coinbase], who’s become a friend, and the whole Coinbase leadership team and board has been an immense privilege. I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the talent and execution the team has demonstrated during my tenure, and I wish the team all the success it deserves going forward.”