There is a lot of buzz recently about Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. Back in January, Mark Zuckerberg expressed his interest in learning about cryptocurrencies. The social media giant, Facebook, is looking forward to developing the software named blockchain. It is the technology behind the infamous, Bitcoin. Blockchain technology is safe and secure which makes it easier to use in anonymous transactions, like cryptocurrencies. The purpose of the development of the blockchain software is to make transactions more trustworthy and it will be encrypted in order to prevent unauthorized access.
The development of blockchain would be led by the vice president of Facebook, David Marcus. Earlier, he was handling the Messenger platform of Facebook. However, from now on, he will be shifting his focus toward developing and leading the blockchain division of the company. As the former president of Paypal, Marcus definitely has immense experience in payment related services. Alongside, he will also be joined by remarkable executives including Kevin Weil, former Vice President of Product at Instagram and James Everingham, Vice President of Engineering at Instagram.
David Marcus posted on Facebook,
“After nearly four unbelievably rewarding years leading Messenger, I have decided it was time for me to take on a new challenge. I’m setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch,“
So, How Does Blockchain Work?
Blockchain is a public digital ledger recording software system that is decentralized and transacts over many computers, in a set of data blocks. Every single block records a time stamp and all other subsequent transactions cannot be altered without erasing the transaction previously up the chain.
For instance, think of a purchase you recently made, like a car. You pay the dealer to get the car. Blockchains distribute the data across a group of computers. It is a network of computers uses blockchain technology which together manage the database that records Bitcoin transaction. If one party sells an asset to another, each sees the same data. Facebook is in talks with multiple companies including Microsoft. At the recently held Microsoft Build 2018, Facebook showed it is keen in building up the Azure Blockchain Workbench. It is a new tool that is supposed to reduce the time it takes businesses to build blockchain applications on top of existing blockchain infrastructure.
There are interesting uses of this technology, one of the most important being the notion businesses can create currencies for their services. Nevertheless, Facebook wants to prevent its users from falling for fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes.