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British Millionaire And Facebook Come To Agreement About Bitcoin (BTC) Scam Ads

Many in the cryptocurrency community were ecstatic to find out that Facebook had reversed its crypto ad ban last year in 2018. Obviously, many believed that cryptocurrency markets could never truly grow unless there was an increased amount of exposure to potential investors and traders.

While the platform might not advertise every company now, and there are strict rules surrounding the advertisements; it still means that cryptocurrency-related companies can reach a fraction of the platform’s 2.2 billion monthly active users, which is a significant part of the world’s population. However, Martin Lewis, a British millionaire, was displeased to find out that his face was being used in advertisements in 2018, and took action against the company. The lawsuit has now been dropped.

Lawsuit Dropped

A millionaire who sued t Facebook because ads had featured his likeness has actually dropped his lawsuit against the global social media platform. This millionaire is none other than Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com. The announcement was made in a press conference on Wednesday, January 23, 2019.

It took eight months for the parties to come to an agreement. Lewis did not accept a sum of money as a settlement, but instead, Facebook will be donating 3 million GBP to Citizens Advice in the UK. Citizens Advice is a network of over 300 charities that provides free information to individuals with all sorts of issues, whether it’s legal or financial.

Next Steps

Facebook appears to be taking action against future issues such as this. Specifically, a button will be provided for UK users to immediately report an ad that they believe to be a scam. A representative for the company stated that if the feature proved effective, it could be expanded to other countries, as well.

Lewis praised Facebook for the decision, and also seemed to hint that Google should take notice. He even stated that he would not rule out the possibility of suing Google, as well.

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Facebook Officially Into Crypto?

Many have speculated about whether Facebook would enter the cryptocurrency sector. There were signs for some time now, as Zuckerberg had spoken on decentralization, and how studying cryptocurrency might lead to solutions for his own company, in January of this year. There was also many who took note of the fact that Facebook was hiring blockchain engineers aggressively, as well.

It appears as though the signs are true: Facebook is looking to eventually develop a cryptocurrency for Whatsapp. According to Bloomberg, it is still under development, and may not be available for some time. The sources told the media outlet: “The company is developing a stablecoin—a type of digital currency pegged to the U.S. dollar—to minimize volatility, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal plans. Facebook is far from releasing the coin, because it’s still working on the strategy, including a plan for custody assets, or regular currencies that would be held to protect the value of the stablecoin.”

About WhatsApp

 

Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts have been excited about the social media platform stepping into the cryptocurrency sector because of the sheer impact that it might have. The company boasts an astonishing 2.2 billion monthly active users, which means that a large portion of the world’s population uses it. In addition, WhatsApp, which the company acquired a while back, boasts 1.5 billion monthly users, and 60 billion messages are sent per day – and this data was from about a year ago.

It’s important to note that in the wake of Facebook’s recent scandals, which involved the fact that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, had affected the United States presidential election – there has reportedly been some tension between Whatsapp and Facebook, leading to Whatsapp co-founder Brian Acton’s departure several months ago.

Remittance

The social media giant is apparently interested in the idea of the remittance sector, especially as it relates to India. For those that are unaware, remittance is when a foreign worker sends money back to their home country.

They certainly would have reason for their interest, considering that India is the number one receiver of remittance in the world, with over $80 billion received this year alone. The remittances industry in general is expected to grow dramatically, as well, so it is no surprise that Facebook will be tailoring its cryptocurrency to disrupt that particular sector.

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Facebook Is Hiring Blockchain Engineers

It appears as though the social media giant Facebook has been quietly hiring blockchain engineers currently. There are five different job listings in the Facebook Careers section. The listings are for the following jobs: data scientist, data engineer, software engineer, and product marketing lead.

Founder Is Interested

It is currently unclear as to what exactly Facebook might be doing with these new positions, although Mark Zuckerberg himself (the founder of Facebook) hinted that he might be developing his own cryptocurrency. Although he did not specifically say that this was in the company’s plans, he stated in a Facebook post that he was interested in decentralization and its implications.

Specifically, he stated: “With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it. There are important counter-trends to this –like encryption and cryptocurrency — that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I’m interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, Randi Zuckerberg, appears to be quite interested in the cryptocurrency sector. She recently joined the advisory board of Huobi, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges. The board also includes Jihan Wu, the founder of Bitmain, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining company.

Share Price Struggling

Facebook is one of the most important social media companies in the world, and a significant percentage of the world uses the platform. Specifically, the company boasts over 2 billion monthly active users. The company recently announced a share buyback plan, as well, because of various scandals that have caused the company to lose over $100 billion in market capitalization.

There are some that argue that Facebook took the biggest hit in share price because of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where it was revealed that the British political consulting firm (now out of business) had exploited Facebook user information to influence the 2016 U.S. election.