Facebook is going to bring cryptocurrency to WhatsApp money transactions

The Dhaka Times Desk US tech giant Facebook has started working on developing the virtual currency cryptocurrency. This cryptocurrency is being created to allow WhatsApp users to make money transactions.

According to media reports, Facebook's main goal is to catch India's remittance market through this technology.

Facebook owned WhatsApp is very popular in India. About 20 crore people in India use this app. India is also at the top of the world as a destination for remittances.

According to a World Bank report, India received around 6,900 billion dollars in remittances last year. Moreover, India has the second highest position in the world in terms of the number of internet users. About 48 crore people are currently using the internet in India.

According to research firm Forrester Research, this number is likely to increase to 73 crore by 2022. That is why India is considered to be a great potential market for Facebook.

Facebook's cryptocurrency development was largely expected to tap into the financial services sector. In 2014, the company hired former PayPal president David Marcus to run WhatsApp. He also started working as the head of Facebook's blockchain service. The company later hired more workers in this sector. According to LinkedIn, Facebook has hired about 40 people in this sector so far.

Facebook is basically trying to create a stable virtual currency, said those involved. The exchange rate of this digital currency will be determined based on the US dollar to prevent value volatility. But they admit that Facebook is still a long way from such currency circulation. The reason is that they have just started working on strategy. These strategies will likely include plans to hold assets or hold currency collateral to stabilize the value of the currency.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said that Facebook, like other companies in the world, is working on the versatile use of blockchain technology. Our small team is exploring different types of applications. Other than that we don't have much to say about it.

Since last year, there are rumors of initiatives to create digital or virtual currency worldwide. According to a report by virtual currency website Stable.com, at least 120 companies have worked in the past year to develop a digital currency that is more stable than bitcoin for easy online transactions. However, none of the initiatives have yet come to fruition.

The reason for this is that security comes first in the use of digital currency. Because there is no visible collateral against digital currency, investors are not at all comfortable using it. That's why no one wants to buy this currency easily. Recently a digital currency called Basis has been shut down after 8 months of running. The Hoboken, New Jersey-based digital currency company said that the main reason for the closure of the currency was the inability to pay collateral.

Tether, another popular digital currency of this time, has also faced similar problems. However, the creators have come up with a value of 1 USD for each Tether token. However, as they did not agree to audit in this regard, many questions arose about the acceptability of the currency.

However, Facebook is completely different. Their annual income is about 4 billion dollars. Again, the number of its users is about 250 crores. Therefore, the stakeholders feel that there will be no problem for the institution to give collateral against cryptocurrency.