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Facebook, Telegram working on their own cryptocurrencies

by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Markets, Social Media, Technology

New York : More than 50 engineers at Facebook are reportedly busy giving shape to the social media giant’s own cryptocurrency and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is quite bullish on the project.

Not only Facebook, highly-encrypted mobile communications apps Telegram and Signal are also on the job to roll out new cryptocurrencies over the next year, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

“The most anticipated but secretive project is underway at Facebook. The company is working on a coin that users of WhatsApp, which Facebook owns, could send to friends and family instantly,” said the report, citing people familiar with the project.

Telegram, with an estimated 300 million users globally, is also working on a digital coin.

“Signal has its own coin in the works. And so do the biggest messaging applications in South Korea and Japan, Kakao and Line,a the report mentioned.

With Facebook’s plan to merge its three platforms — Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram – the digital currency would reach nearly “2.7 billion people who use one of the three apps each month”.

Last year, David Marcus, a long-time in-charge of Facebook Messenger, said in a blog post that he is setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage Blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch.

Facebook also promoted one of its senior engineers Evan Cheng as the Director of Engineering at its Blockchain division, signalling the importance of the project.

According to Zuckerberg, the users may soon login to Facebook with Blockchain-based authentication.

In a public interview with Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain late last month, Zuckerberg said he is “potentially interested” in putting the Facebook login on the Blockchain technology.

“I’m thinking about going back to decentralised or Blockchain authentication. Although I haven’t figured out a way to make this work out but this is around authentication and basically granting access to your information and to different services,” Zuckerberg told Zittrain.

According to him, Blockchain could give users more powers when granting data access to third-party apps.

“Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of Blockchain technology,” Facebook said in an earlier statement.

—IANS

Iran blocks messaging app Telegram amid nationwide protests

by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Muslim World, Technology

Tehran : The Iranian government has clamped a nationwide block on the country’s most popular encrypted messaging platform Telegram after days of anti-government unrest.

“The Iranian government also requested suspension for a number of other channels that had not violated the policy on violence. When Telegram refused, the government placed a nationwide block on the app,” Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, was quoted as saying by The Verge.

Iran state TV announced that Telegram was suspended to “preserve the peace and security of citizens”, according to BuzzFeed.

Internet access has been sporadically cut off to several cities where anti-government protests have taken place, and access to other social media platforms like Facebook-owned Instagram has also been intermittent.

Meanwhile, officials say that over 20 people have been killed and hundreds arrested in Iran since the protests broke out on Thursday in the northeastern city of Mashhad and spread to the capital Tehran and several other provinces.

The unrest was ignited by frustration at Iran’s sluggish economy but has widened to include open defiance of Iran’s ruling clergy.

Even before the protests began, Iran’s government blocked popular social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and any VPN services that might be used to circumvent the block.

—IANS