Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of the world’s largest social network–Facebook–also runs his own Facebook page. A regular user, he frequently posts on his wall. These posts often include information about his daily activities, his personal life and family, outlooks on social media in general, and plans regarding the future development of Facebook platform. In the most recent post Mark reflected on one of today’s hottest topics – cryptocurrencies.
“One of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralization vs decentralization. A lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people’s hands. (The first four words of Facebook’s mission have always been “give people the power”.) Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed technology would be a decentralizing force,” says Facebook CEO. “But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it.”
“There are important counter-trends to this –like encryption and cryptocurrency – that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I’m interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services,” adds Zuckerberg.
It’s not without reason to guess that Facebook might consider dipping its toes in a blockchain platform and cryptocurrency. There are no straight indicators of such intent, but Zuckerberg’s interest in cryptocurrencies may become the first step in that direction. Worth adding is that it’s been rumored recently that Telegram, one of the world’s largest messenger platforms, is going to launch it’s own blockchain TON (Telegram Open Network) this year.