Showing posts with label mastercard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mastercard. Show all posts

Facebook's Cryptocurrency Keeps Sounding Worse And Worse, As Insider Leaks New Partners - Visa and Mastercard....

More details have just emerged regarding Facebook's cryptocurrency project, perhaps giving us the most insight so far on the direction they're aiming to take the project.

An insider, speaking to The Wall Street Journal has just leaked some new information on the project, including it's name internally at Facebook, "Project Libra".

We already knew they we're 'going big' with this one - approximately 3 weeks ago we learned about the massive fundraising efforts going on behind the scenes - that's when we first heard the project's $1 billion dollar price tag, and that Facebook would be seeking outside investment to raise it. 

The reporter who published that story also dove into Facebook's current job listings and discovered 22 new roles within the company's blockchain department now accepting applications, bringing the total number of department staff from 40 to 62.

If the WSJ's unnamed source is to be believed, we now know some specifics on where that $1 billion will come from -  Visa, Mastercard, and a company you may not know by name, but processes many of the payments for both, First Data Corp.

Let's try to look on the bright side:

I know, it's starting to feel like an alliance of the worst corporations coming together to launch EvilCoin - but, this also may potentially serve as a gateway cryptocurrency.

Because Facebook's plan actually reaches far beyond Facebook - they've also been approaching major online retailers and hope to make their cryptocurrency an accepted form of payment at a wide variety of businesses.  Rumor is, they're pitching them with a pro-crypro argument I've heard since owning my first Bitcoins - all the money they could save on processing fees.

Now imagine - once a retailer has been coaxed into accepting this cyptocurrency, and sees the cumulative effects of saving the 2%-3% typically lost to credit card companies for processing, why would they stop here?

They'll soon learn there's billion held by potential customers in other cryptocurrencies that offer them that exact same incentive.

It's also going to be a lot harder for anyone to make generalized statements against cryptocurrency's legitimacy, with a Visa and Mastercard in their wallet, and the Facebook app on their phone.  Can you really be anti-crypto when everything in your pocket says you're wrong?

It may not be the path to mass adoption we dreamed of, but it's potentially a path nonetheless.

Facebook declined to comment on these latest rumors.

-------
Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk




MasterCard files patent application full of Blockchain based tech...


A patent application placed by MasterCard and posted by the US Government on the Patent and Trademark office's website is drawing some attention for how heavily MasterCard is adopting blockchain technology.

In fact, the word "blockchain" appears 101 times in the application.

The "abstract" summary of the patent reads as follows...

A method for processing a guaranteed electronic transaction, includes: storing account profile, each include an account number and balance; receiving a transaction message from an acquiring financial institution via a payment network, the message including a specific account number, transaction amount, and payment guarantee data; identifying a specific account profile that includes the specific account number; deducting the transaction amount from the account balance in the specific account profile; generating a record of payment guarantee that includes the transaction amount and data associated with the payment guarantee data; generating a return message including a response code indicating transaction approval and data associated with the generated record; transmitting the generated record to a computing system via a communication network; and transmitting the generated return message to the acquiring financial institution via the payment network.

All 3 of the big players in the credit card industry are now diving into blockchain tech.

Visa is using Chain's blockchain code for its latest pilot, looking towards using blockchain for international payments, and just over a week ago we covered American express announcing a partnership with Ripple.

MasterCard's full patent application can be viewed here.
-------
Author: Adam Lee
Asia News Desk