David Marcus, Facebook's VP of Blockchain (Maurizio Pesce / Flickr)Facebook (FB) has made its first acquisition in the blockchain space, purchasing the team behind Chainspace, a small blockchain startup founded by researchers from University College London.
According to a breaking reportby Cheddar that cites individuals familiar with the matter, four of the five researchers behind Chainspace’s whitepaper are joining Facebook’s blockchain group, with two already listing Facebook as an employer on LinkedIn.
An official spokesperson for Facebook confirmed the story, stating, “Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology. This new small team is exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share.”
Prior to the acquisition, Chainspace was working to expand upon the current blockchain technology to improve the speed of transactions. Some listed technologies on its websiteinclude a leaderless consensus algorithm, sharding, privacy applications and zero-knowledge proofs, and smart contracts that can be built in any language.
While the amount of the acquisition hasn’t been revealed, Chainspace was in the process of raising an initial funding round under $4 million, according to Cheddar.
This news comes a month and a half after Bloomberg reportedthat Facebook is developing a cryptocurrency designed specifically for money transfers on its WhatsApp encrypted messaging app.
According to the report, the new cryptocurrency will be a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, in order to reduce volatility. The first focus will be the remittance market in India, according to people familiar with the matter.
