Facebook is launching a new team dedicated to blockchain led by David Marcus, the former PayPal president who oversaw Facebook Messenger for four years and recently joined the board of Coinbase.
But Facebook’s blockchain story isn’t about payments, it’s about the social networking giant restoring consumer trust in light of its recent data scandal.
It’s entirely possible payments will be part of its blockchain strategy, which the company has said little about publicly other than that it’s meant to explore how blockchain technology could be beneficial to its business. But that doesn’t necessarily require blockchain. The likelier angle is that Facebook is looking to restore trust from consumers.
