Facebook made its first acquisition in the blockchain field . We are talking about Chainspace, a startup specialized in the development of smart contracts .
The social network silently engaged the team behind Chainspace, a small blockchain startup founded by researchers at University College London, said Cheddar.com . Chainspace is creating a decentralized “smart contract” system that can facilitate payments and other services through blockchain technology.
The acquisition of the Chainspace team is the clear sign of the ambition that Facebook is becoming a great actor in the blockchain technology industry . A Facebook executive and former president of PayPal, David Marcus, is now leading the blockchain team of the giant.
According to the Chainspace white paper dated August 2017, which outlines the academic and technological details underlying the project, the team wanted to create a
Distributed accounting platform for the transparent processing of transactions within a decentralized system.
Increase the speed of transactions through blockchain technology
This means that one of Chainspace’s goals is to increase the speed of transactions through blockchain technology , which are currently slower than traditional financial systems such as Visa. The Chainspace researchers also examined how blockchain and decentralization could be applied in the voting process.
The Chainspace white paper will use the Facebook blockchain team. Two of the authors , Alberto Sonnino and George Danezis, already show their use as blockchain researchers in the London office of Facebook ($ FB) on LinkedIn .
The Chainspace website has been recently updated and shows the warning: “ moving on to something new “. This indicates that something is about to happen. A spokesperson confirmed to Cheddar that the company hired several employees from Chainspace. But refused to comment on the specific assumptions. Facebook is not acquiring any Chainspace technology, said this spokesperson,
Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring the power of blockchain technology. This new small team is exploring many different applications. We have nothing more to add.
We had already reported last year that Facebook was exploring the possibility of creating its own cryptocurrency. As reported by Bloomberg, will take the form of a stablecoin supported by a real currency, usable within Whatsapp .Read also: The Top 10 of the Crypto & Blockchain acquisitions of 2018
Facebook Recruitment
The social network recruited academics, product managers, engineers and experts with experience in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. More than 40 people are currently working in the Facebook blockchain team. It is now showing interest in hiring other teams behind the nascent blockchain and cryptocurrency projects , such as Chainspace.
It is not clear how much Facebook would be willing to pay for such an acquisition. A first round of financing should be less than 4 million dollars.
The social network has held discussions with Algorand in the past, a blockchain-based payment platform, which has so far raised approximately $ 66 million. But those talks did not lead to anything effective.