The social network giant Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has announced that it has made its first acquisition in the blockchain space, hiring the team behind Chainspace, a small blockchain startup founded by researchers from University College London, as earlier reported by Cheddar.
The article on Cheddar seems to be the source of this news as little has been confirmed by Facebook themselves save for the fact that they’ve hired a few members from Chainspace team.
Chainspace is building a decentralized “smart contracts” system aiming to make payments and other services easier through blockchain technology.
As LeapRate announced back in December 2018, Facebook is on a hiring blockchain spree. The company has started forming a blockchain group in mid-2018, and now has over 40 “blockchain” employees. Facebook was rumoured to be launching its very own digital coin.
David Marcus, who was a President at Paypal (NASDAQ:PYPL) and a Board Member in Coinbase, has joined Facebook in the blockchain exploration business strategy since May 2018. Prior to that, he was the VP of Messenger.
This is all we know at this point. What Facebook’s working on or how it will be rolled out is still very much a mystery.
As per the Chainspace’s website:
We’re exited to announce that the team is moving on to something new. Chainspace code and documentation will still be open source, and all previous academic work remains available.