Facebook's Cryptocurrency Might Work Like Loyalty Points

If Facebook's pivot from town square to private living room wasn't laden with enough irony, here's a new twist: Big business, it appears, has been invited to join us by the fireplace. From a report: On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported new potential details about Facebook's long-awaited cryptocurrency plans. The company is reportedly seeking dozens of business partners, including online merchants and financial firms, in an effort to extend the reach of its blockchain-based marketplace. Facebook's would-be partners are being asked to pitch into an investment fund, valued at $1 billion or more, that would serve as backing for Facebook's coin and mitigate the wild speculative swings that make cryptocurrencies like bitcoin hard to spend. The pitch, according to the Journal, involves offering merchants lower fees than credit cards.

Some were quick to note that this would reduce Facebook's ability to make money from payments in the short term. But that may not matter much -- if, in the end, Facebook's crypto effort is really all about getting you to spend more time glued to Facebook. Facebook appears to be already building out the plumbing to make its marketplace a reality. At its F8 developer conference this week, the word "blockchain" was notably absent.

Re: Delete Facebook

[pollarda]

Don't worry, your Facebook Cryptocurrency will maintain its value as long as you tow the party line in what you think, post, link to, or who you associate with. If you don't or criticize the powers-that-be that Facebook supports, POOF! There goes your Cryptosavings!

Re:

[Hognoxious]

You'd have to make them oval to fit his horsey face on them.

That's Life

[nnet]

Sinatra on one side, David Lee Roth on the other.

Gambling?

[ruddk]

So it goes a bit into the territory of gambling? Try to make popular comments to see if you can make money?
I totally gets why he wants to do it and I think it might work. He needs to do something because from that I’ve heard, people are using Facebook less and less.

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[tsa]

If it works like that it's a lot like YouTube. Except that YouTube can be fun and educational and FB seems more and more like a waste of time.

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[Highdude702]

Wait, you're telling me youtube has ads? Is your browser broken?

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[tsa]

I also hardly ever see ads on YouTube.

Re:

[ruddk]

Yeah, I deleted my Facebook account some time ago, I didn't feel it added enough value to my life, compared to the time I would spend on it.
People didn't understand that I didn't check it that often so I had to delete it. At the time, you couldn't just get messages when people contacted you, you had to get the "look what someone posted" messages and I have been spending a lot of time disabling all the noise, which didn't seem to be possible with facebook, so it had to go.

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[BlueStrat]

So it goes a bit into the territory of gambling? Try to make popular comments to see if you can make money?

Probably more like China's "social credit system".

Hell, China probably stole the whole "social credit" idea from Silicon Valley to begin with.

Strat

Facebook is the enemy

[aliquis]

Why should anyone who understands anything be interested?

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[JaredOfEuropa]

At least the "I have nothing to hide, so what do I care" crowd are starting to come around and show some concern about their privacy.

Facebook has jumped the shark.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that is wasn't already based on the morals of a psychopath from the start.

Nor because it is grandma's turf now.

Not even because it is so blatantly obvious every time, that their goal is not to do good, but to *look like* they are doing good.

But because they are even betraying everything they were.
Leaving nothing for "Facebook" to actually be.
Like a transparent mollusc on a rocky shoreline with thirty foot waves.

All it has left going for it, is its own inertia. Like a hippo wobbling down a hill for a wh

Re:

[guruevi]

The merchant pays the fees, not the consumer. In the US you typically get 1-3% cash back for using your CC and paying it off on time.

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[guruevi]

Cryptocurrency is just a buzzword for a public database. The question will be who controls the database, a currency like Bitcoin uses a distributed database where everyone has to agree so it's universally available.

These types of "currencies" are just internal databases at Facebook, I highly doubt they'll hand control over to the users as then you could use it for any purpose.

And as far as Facebook's "coup d'etat" it luckily failed in 2016 but they won't make the mistake twice; they're already well on their

A new coin for the Facebook kingdom?

[dwulf]

I often think that with a network as big as Facebook, and Facebook's association with advertisers that the Facebook coin may be on par with conventional fiat currency in the future.

double divorced prom queen

[Chissblue]

If you still use FB and their acquired products then you are, unfortunately, what is empowering them to last far far longer than they should have. It was supposed to be a decade flirtation with your high school double divorced prom queen and little more.

Ugh

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I don't have a Facebook account, but even if I did, there's nothing in the world that could convince me to use a cryptocurrency backed or invented by Facebook.

I see almost nothing but heartache and disaster stories coming out of this.

I mean, just think about it: Facebook's atrocious security and privacy track record coupled with the fact that hackers will be all over it like flies on shit. What could possibly go wrong?