Facebook has secured some pretty big backers for Project Libra, according to The Wall Street Journal. PayPal, Uber, Visa and Mastercard are reportedly investing around $10 million each in the social network’s cryptocurrency. Other investors include Stripe and Booking.com. By agreeing to put money into the initiative, they’ve become part of a consortium created to govern the digital coin. It’s not yet clear, however, if Facebook has already managed to raise the $1 billion it was hoping to in order to fund the coin’s creation.
Facebook users could transfer personal payments and purchase goods and services not just on the company’s platform, but also on other websites, using the currency. If the company achieves what it wants to do with the coin, it would eventually work like the common checkout options, such as PayPal, that people use online today. WSJ says neither Facebook nor any of the members of the consortium will manage the currency. Some of the investors might serve as “nodes” in the system, though, verifying payments and maintaining records.
Exactly what GlobalCoin will be used for is still uncertain, even some of the partners don’t know. “It is still not entirely clear, even to some members of the consortium, how the coin will work or what their roles will be,” wrote the Journal.
The BBC writes that GlobalCoin will provide an affordable and secure way of making payments, regardless of whether users have a bank account. Facebook is said to be in talks with online merchants in the hope they’ll accept the crypto in return for lower transaction fees.
Facebook is expected to unveil GlobalCoin on June 18.
