It is hard to remember life without Facebook
and its hand in growing the popularity of social media. Since Facebook was founded in 2004, it has
become instrumental in fostering interpersonal and digital connections. The major company has taken control of
Instagram, which is also increasingly popular for social media users to share
photos. Facebook, as mentioned by a Genesis
Mining Review, has footholds in digital messaging with WhatsApp and
Facebook Messaging, virtual reality with Oculus, artificial intelligence work
conducted by AI Research and more.
Facebook has received tremendous backlash on various topics from privacy
to censorship concerns. Now, Facebook
plans to reveal its own cryptocurrency, which it has coined with the name
“Libra.”
Along with bitcoin and other forms of
cryptocurrency, Facebook announced that it is working on releasing Libra in
2020. A Genesis
Mining Review shares that the public’s reaction to the reveal has
not been supportive, and many are more concerned with Facebook correcting its
current system downfalls. The motive
behind the creation of Libra is for more people to have access to a financial
system without using a traditional bank account. Libra, similar to Venmo and other transaction
applications, would allow individuals to send and receive currency
digitally. One Genesis
Mining Review notes that Libra would be connected to assets in the
real world, which makes it stand out from other cryptocurrencies like
Bitcoin. Facebook’s cryptocurrency would
operate entirely online, which some believe is a convenient way to maintain
finances. However, while more
technologically advanced banking, such as Apple Pay and online banking, is
becoming more popular, cryptocurrency is not.
Current forms of cryptocurrency are not well
known, and their advertisements have even been blocked on major websites like
YouTube. Some speculate if Libra would
become popular because of its promised presence on Instagram and other
Facebook-owned social media platforms.
Numerous politicians agree that, based on Facebook’s track record of
poor privacy regulations, Libra could be dangerous to individuals’ financial
portfolios. Others argue that Libra will
not be popular because it will not be immediately accepted everywhere. With the New Year just beginning, there may
be a stronger focus on the rise of cryptocurrency in the new decade.