Facebook Is Hiring Blockchain Devs And Discussing Cryptocurrency Launch: Report

In the latest news centered around blockchain and digital currencies on our DC Forecasts crypto news site, we have Facebook as one of the most successful social media giants and its recent aggressive hiring spree to woo crypto experts and expand its blockchain group amid speculation that the social media monopoly is launching its own cryptocurrency.

It all began in April 2016 when Facebook formed its blockchain unit with David Marcus, the former president of PayPal and VP at Messenger. Marcus is a longtime cryptocurrency advocate and a former board member at Coinbase which is the largest US-based cryptocurrency exchange

Currently, the blockchain group at Facebook has about 40 employees which include half-dozen ex-PayPal executives that Marcus recruited from his former employer, as reports from Cheddar noted. There are also people who have worked at Google Pay and Samsung Pay, the mobile and digital wallet service from Samsung.

also talked Facebook Blockchain with @lisahopeking / @thebradsmith on @cheddar yesterday — top takeaways are that FB's brand is a problem for recruiting in the space and it's going to likely do meaningful M&A to achieve its goals pic.twitter.com/nVoiqnZ9HG

— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) December 14, 2018

As Cheddar’s Alex Heath said in the video above:

“They’ve been very quiet about what they’ve been working on, very stealthy. But it’s definitely going to be some kind of blockchain-based cryptocurrency payments product.”

Heath also said that Facebook is in hot pursuit of gifted recruits because the talent pool is relatively shallow due to the infancy of the crypto ecosystem.

“The talent in this industry is so finite, and there are so many big players wanting these talented cryptographers and academics. So, Facebook is going really hard at them. And they’re having difficulty,” Heath concluded.