BIG NEWS! According to Bloomberg, Facebook is going focus on the Indian market to let users transfer money via a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency on WhatsApp. Currently, WhatsApp has over 200,000,000 users in India alone!
Social media giant Facebook is reportedly looking to develop its own stablecoin for money transfers via its popular messaging app Whatsapp. According to sources, the service will launch first in India.
Well-known cryptocurrency veterans like Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, immediately used the news to sketch an image of what this could mean for the future of crypto. Pompliano, founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital Assets, tweeted:
If Facebook launches the stablecoin they are reportedly building, it will quickly become the most used product in crypto.
WhatsApp has over 200,000,000 users in India alone.
The Indian government has been fighting crypto too so things are about to get very, very interesting…
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) December 21, 2018
Although the news is really amazing, the report also added the actual launch of the stablecoin could still be a way off. Currently, the initiative is at a strategic planning stage and, therefore, the launch will not happen anytime soon.
India is also one of the largest markets for remittances, with migrants sending $69.59 billion back home in 2017 alone, according to the latest annual report from the World Bank. With the Whatsapp stablecoin, Indians working abroad would be able to easily transfer money to their family in India. Currently, this is still a big problem in India, because current services to send money are still being overly expensive.
The move by Facebook would not be strange, since other global messaging applications, such as Kakao, LINE, and Telegram, have already revealed plans to move into the blockchain space.
