Facebook blockchain head David Marcus is quitting the board of directors at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase with his departure most likely being a signal that the social networking giant\u2019s secretive blockchain efforts are progressing.<\/p>\n
In a statement published<\/span><\/a> by CoinDesk David Marcus said:<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the new group I\u2019m setting up at Facebook around blockchain, I\u2019ve decided it was appropriate for me to resign from the Coinbase board.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n A Coinbase spokesperson said Marcus’ decision to step down was made to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, but declined to elaborate.<\/p>\n Marcus joined the board at Coinbase in December 2017. At the time, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said Marcus would apply his expertise in the “payments and mobile space” to guide the San Francisco-based company in its overall mission.<\/p>\n At Facebook’s F8 conference in May 2018, Marcus was named the company\u2019s new blockchain research lead. The social media giant has not released any details about the work it is doing in the field, though Marcus’ team reportedly has fewer than a dozen members.<\/p>\n Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong thanked Marcus for his service in a separate statement.<\/p>\n \u201cDavid Marcus has been a wonderful addition to the Coinbase board, providing valuable perspective and mentorship.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Business Insider reported<\/span><\/a> Friday that Facebook had spoken to “a number of crypto projects” on how it can leverage the technology. One of these projects includes Stellar, which developed the XLM cryptocurrency, however, later that day a Facebook spokesman told<\/span><\/a> Cheddar that the company is \u201cnot engaged in any discussions with Stellar, and we are not considering building on their technology.\u201d<\/p>\n The establishment of the blockchain team at Facebook followed the implementation of a broader shake-up of the company\u2019 product team, which led to the formation of three separate divisions: a \u201cfamily of apps\u201d group, “central product services” and \u201cnew platforma and infra.\u201d<\/p>\n Later that month, anonymous sources familiar with \u201cFacebook\u2019s plans\u201d told Cheddar that Facebook is \u201cexploring\u201d the creation of its own in-app cryptocurrency, despite having banned crypto ads on the platform earlier this year.<\/p>\n Notably, after Facebook said in July<\/span><\/a> it would update its policy “to allow ads that promote cryptocurrency and related content from pre-approved advertisers,” Coinbase ads are now appearing again on both Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n Follow ForkLog on Twitter<\/a><\/span> and Facebook<\/a><\/span>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Facebook blockchain head David Marcus is quitting the board of directors at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase with his departure most likely being a signal that the social networking giant\u2019s secretive blockchain efforts are progressing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"human_written","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[138,790,611],"class_list":["post-5006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-coinbase","tag-david-marcus","tag-facebook"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"238","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5165,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5006\/revisions\/5165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}