Facebook is Expanding its Blockchain Development Team

In the domain of multinational blockchain development, Facebook has always been somewhat of a gray entity. The social media company, as one of the biggest businesses on the planet, was always on the cutting edge of the technological development, often somewhat outside of its core areas. At the same time, the mindset of its CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg was also always in line with this way of thinking.

Today, Facebook is actively pursuing a range of projects, including free online access to underdeveloped nations and VR technology as a means of social interactions. The blockchain is also in the mix, but there is a lot less information about the trajectory Facebook is looking to take with it or how does the development figure into the overall company vision.

Recent news from the same field, however, provide a glimpse into the development domain and how is Facebook planning to take it further. While its overall impact on the development community might be disputed, blockchain inside of Facebook systems could be a definite game-changer not just for the company but the way we use and perceived social media platforms.

A Bid for Developers

Facebook is hiring staff that will be permanently placed on the blockchain development projects. The giant has not five openings for the talent in this domain. The work will take place in Menlo Park, California. The same Facebook facility is its HQ for the areas of marketing, software engineering, and data science.

The company has yet not revealed what its plans for blockchain development are, but its career pages for the same talent cite that the company is pursuing a goal of helping billions across the globe to gain access to things they do not have. More precisely, the same pages cover things like financial services along with new ways of both storing and sharing data. The company’s blockchain division was launched in May of 2018 and works on exploring this emerging tech. David Marcus is the team’s lead.

Marcus previously worked as the company’s VP for the Messenger app development team. In June, the company appointed Evan Cheng, one of its senior engineers as the first director of blockchain engineering. Further, in the company’s career ads, Facebook is stating that the blockchain division will work as a startup located within the larger company.

Open Positions

When it comes to the data-focused roles, the blockchain division in Facebook is looking for data engineers and data scientists, while the requirements that are listed cover things like the expertise in quantitative analysis, as well as using building models of user behavior to fuel development of the product’s systems. However, the company is not looking just for engineers and data scientists for its new division.

It is also seeking a product marketing lead position who will focus on the building and management of a new product marketing team. This team will be assigned with the taste of exploring individual opportunities that the blockchain tech, within the Facebook set of services, can bring to its users. The marketing lead position will also be tasked with defining the company’s go-to-market strategies and plans.

Blockchain as Support

There is the first and logical conclusion when examining what role would blockchain play inside of the Facebook structure and that role is one of support. Here, the ability of blockchain to deposit and use data through a decentralized system would be a huge boon to the maintenance and traditional support this social media platform employs.

Like in esports and many other different digital endeavors, the ability to provide a service with the best possible results using the lowest possible costs is the path to success. It is hard to say what these costs might be with the introduction of the blockchain tech inside of Facebook current systems, but there is a possibility there that will surely be explored by the blockchain division. Even if the research and development conclude that this is not feasible in the short term, the exploration of the same possibility will be one of the main tasks.

Blockchain as new Services

This is what Facebook publicly wants to focus on and it includes the development and introduction of brand new services. As the ad state, they would be broken down into the area of finance and the area of data access and storage. With its tremendous base of users, Facebook is at the junction where it is clear that the company is thinking about the development of its own currency.

This currency would be based on blockchain just as bitcoin or any other public cryptocurrency is currently based. The same would not surmount to the interchangeable nature between the two almost for sure – the pressure from legislators and regulators that the Facebook has been facing over the previous year means that it is surely very reluctant to come under a new barrage. Instead, the path for these services in Facebook would be similar to what carrier pay or WePay in China utilize – this basically includes a tech entity that is widely used and then suddenly open by its developers to financial transactions.

The blockchain is the way to establish a shared ledger and follow all of the transactions inside of a system with little overkeep. But, even though the technical elements could be resolved easily with enough effort and budget spending, the problem of regulation remains a strong issue. This means that the Facebook Pay app will not likely seen the light of day anytime soon.

A Force to be Reconed With

Facebook is not perceiving or perusing blockchain as one of its top priorities and the previous analysts of all available options underlines the same. However, there is no need to underline that Facebook is a force to be reckoned within the IT domain and the development work on blockchain is ongoing within its offices in Menlo Park. Because of that, Facebook blockchain division could still surprise many with its solutions not just in the mentioned domain, but in something completely unexpected field.

Source: CoinDesk