Facebook Is ‘Rapidly Expanding Its Blockchain Division’: Should We Expect Big Things?

Something is apparently happening in Facebook’s cryptocurrency division. According to some sources, the leading social media giant is preparing something new in its crypto division.

As Business Insider first reported, Facebook’s blockchain research group recently met with Stellar to discuss the social media conglomerate and how it could leverage the distributed ledger technology (DLT) as it explores building out an entire payments network.

According to unnamed sources, Facebook and Stellar have discussed forking the public Stellar blockchain – just like the chat app Kik did after it decided to create its own independent blockchain for the Kin cryptocurrency.

BI also reported that Facebook has been rapidly expanding its blockchain division and meeting with other (unnamed) cryptocurrency projects. A job posting published by a startup said that they are“a startup within Facebook, with a vision to make blockchain technology work at Facebook scale and improve the lives of billions of people around the world.”

David Marcus, which is a Facebook vice president and former head of its Messenger division, recently stepped down from his post on Coinbase’s board of directors (a role that he took last December). Marcus apparently left his role in Messenger to lead the blockchain division at the company, as the first reports by CoinDesk noted.

One Coinbase spokesperson told the publication that Marcus stepped down to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, which led to a speculation that Facebook is preparing to make a major announcement regarding its cryptocurrency plans.

Meanwhile, it is no secret that cryptocurrencies are in the focus of the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. As he said earlier this year, one of his personal challenges for 2018 was to learn more about technologies like encryption and cryptocurrency.