Speculations are swirling after Facebook announced on Tuesday, it was lifting the controversial ban on cryptocurrency ads it imposed in January. Could Facebook Cryptocurrency be the next big thing for this social media giant?

The controversial ban was introduced in January amid concerns that cryptocurrency Facebook ads were being used for fraudulent purposes. According to Nasdaq, Facebook’s January ban on cryptocurrency ads stemmed from ICO scams and the lack of regulation in the space at the time. The refined Facebook policy now requires digital currency advertisers to apply and go through an approval policy. Furthermore, Facebook’s cryptocurrency reversal comes on the heels of several interesting moves this past year.

 

Cryptocurrency Facebook Post

In January, Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that he was interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of encryption and cryptocurrency. With over 2 billion daily users, Facebook could help legitimize cryptocurrency. 

 

“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.”  Zuckerberg

 

Blockchain Division at Facebook

In May, the company announced that it had formed a blockchain division. The group will study how blockchain can be used across the social media platform. Heading the group is David Marcus, who formerly headed Facebook Messenger and currently sits on the board of Coinbase. According to industry insiders, the reversal comes at a time when rumors are circulating that Facebook may be looking to acquire Coinbase, a San Francisco-based digital currency exchange with more than 13 million users.

 

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.  Zuckerberg

 

Coinbase Acquisition?

What are the implications if Facebook acquired Coinbase?  According to experts, acquiring this digital currency exchange would boost Facebook’s value almost instantly. In other words, the technology giant’s involvement would bring added legitimacy to the crypto market at a critical time. According to the online technology publication, Futurism, a spokesperson from Facebook could not comment about this topic just yet. However, this doesn’t mean it isn’t a possibility.  Cryptocurrency linked to a social networking site, especially one as powerful as Facebook, is certainly an interesting idea.

 

The lifting of Facebook’s ad ban signals the company could be considering blockchain and cryptocurrency as a future business model. The reversal comes at a time when a potential Facebook acquisition of Coinbase would give the industry the legitimacy it needs.  The move would perhaps also fulfill  Zuckerberg’s desires to take power from centralized systems and put it back into the hands of the people.