Blockchain Technology: Facebook and Telegram will launch new cryptocurrencies in Next Year 

As a further indication of the project’s significance, Facebook moved one of its top engineers, Evan Cheng, to the position of Director of Engineering in its Blockchain division. 

According to reports, more than 50 engineers at Facebook are hard at work developing the social media giant’s own cryptocurrency, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is quite enthusiastic about the idea. 

In addition to Facebook, The New York Times reported on Thursday that Telegram and Signal, two highly encrypted mobile messaging apps, are also working to introduce new cryptocurrencies over the coming year. 

“At Facebook, the most anticipated but top-secret project is now ongoing.” According to the story, “the company is working on a coin that users of WhatsApp, which Facebook controls, could instantaneously give to friends and family.”  

Telegram, which has an estimated 300 million members worldwide, is also developing a digital coin. “Signal is developing its own coin.” According to a report, so do the most popular messaging apps in South Korea and Japan, Kakao and Line. 

The digital currency would reach roughly “2.7 billion individuals who use one of the three applications each month” if Facebook’s three platforms — Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram — were to be merged. 

Last year, Facebook Messenger manager David Marcus announced in a blog post last year that he is forming a small team to investigate how to best utilize Blockchain across Facebook, from scratch. 

In order to emphasize the significance of the project, Facebook recently promoted senior developer Evan Cheng to Director of Engineering in its Blockchain division. Users may soon log in to Facebook using Blockchain-based authentication, according to Zuckerberg. 

Late last month, Zuckerberg stated that he is “possibly interested” in putting the Facebook login on the Blockchain technology in a public interview with Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain. 

“I’m considering returning to blockchain or decentralized authentication. This is about authentication and essentially granting access to your information and to other services, even if I haven’t worked out how to make it work,” Zuckerberg told Zittrain. 

He asserted that Blockchain might provide users more control over whether or not to allow third-party apps access to their data. Facebook previously stated that it was “exploring ways to exploit the capabilities of Blockchain technology, like many other organizations.”