Facebook is now working on making a cryptocurrency that will let users transfer money on its famous and popular messaging app Whatsapp, which is focusing first on the remittances market in India according to the people which is familiar with the matter.
The company is working on building and developing a stable coin, a type of digital currency pegged to the US dollar to minimize the volatility. As of now, Facebook is so far from releasing the coin because it is still working on the strategy as of now which includes a plan for custody assets, or regular currencies that would be going to be held to protect the value of the stable coin.
Facebook has been a long time expected to make in the financial and management services, after hiring the former PayPal president David Marcus to run its Facebook Messenger in the year 2014. Facebook as of now has been on a hiring spree and now has more than 40 people in its blockchain group according to the report.
‘Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology,’ a company spokesman said in a statement. ‘This new small team is exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share.’
Whatsapp the company encrypted Messaging app is more popular in India with more than 200 million users. The country also leads the world in remittances, people sent $69 Billion home to India in the year 2017, according to the world bank report.
The company relationship with India has been fraught because some of the instances of the fake and child abuse news spread across the Whatsapp that have led the violence there. Facebook has seen a tremendous growth opportunity in the country as India has more than 480 Million users.