Meet The World's Next Central Banker: Mark Zuckerberg
Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
Within the last week, Facebook announced a ban on all advertisements about bitcoin, initial coin offerings and other cryptocurrencies.
Facebook (along with Google) virtually controls Internet advertising. So their policies have enormous influence over consumer behavior.
Banning ICO advertisements on its platform, for example, will certainly have a negative impact on the amount of money flowing into new ICO's.
Facebook said it instituted this ban to "protect its users" from financial scams in the cryptocurrency sector. At least, that's the "official" reason.
And in fairness, there is a ridiculous amount of fraud out there — countless scammy ICO's and appallingly stupid tokens and coins.
But it's also possible that Facebook's main driver in this move goes beyond its desire to protect the well-being of its nearly 2 billion users.
It was only a month ago that Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook would study encryption and the blockchain to "see how best to use them in our services."
And one of the speakers at the crypto conference that one of our team members attended in New York City yesterday confirmed Facebook is investing a ton of capital into blockchain right now.
It stands to reason that Facebook's decision to ban crypto advertisements may be rooted in eliminating its own competition, i.e. Facebook may be working on its own proprietary blockchain and cryprocurrency to deploy on its own platform.
One possibility is that Facebook could adopt a similar model to Steemit – a decentralized social network that operates on the blockchain.
It's up to Steemit's users to police the site, not a central authority. And the platform rewards its users for good content with small amounts of cryptocurrency and penalizes users for spam and "fake news."
This would solve a huge problem for Facebook, which has already come under fire from governments across the world for not doing enough to moderate user content including "fake news," "hate speech," etc.
Facebook has already hired an army of content moderators, but this is barely been able to make a dent in solving the company's problem.
So adopting a model like Steemit ,which rewards users with specialized crypto could certainly make sense.
This wouldn't be the company's first foray into the arena, either.
When social games like Farmville were popular (maybe they still are, who knows), gamers could pay for e-goods with an in-game currency. Then Facebook created its own currency for people to trade in and out of Farmville and other games.
A full-blown Facebook Token is the logical next step.
Given Facebook's worldwide dominance, its tokens would have the potential to become enormously popular, practically overnight, and used in everyday transactions in the real world.
The big hope with Bitcoin is that it may one day disrupt conventional fiat currencies. Maybe so. But Bitcoin still has a steep adoption curve before it becomes truly disruptive.
Facebook Tokens, on the other hand, would be adopted by hundreds of millions of people right from the start.
You'd be able to buy and sell products in Facebook Tokens, send money and remittances, pay contract employees overseas, and engage in all sorts of cross-border transactions.
This would essentially make Mark Zuckerberg the world's central banker… the one person with control over the first truly global currency. 
Given that he already controls the #1 media source in the world and has substantial influence over consumer behavior, launching a Facebook Token would solidify his position as the most powerful person on the planet.
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I do not see it happening, at least not in the way described.
To start, GE sold off GE Capital because it did not like having to adhere to the onerous using banking laws. Do not forget, any public corporation who deals in financial instruments is now treated as a bank...something GE did not like. I am not sure Zuckerberg is willing to go that route..
Secondly, I cannot see him decentralizing. If that was the case, he gives up control. Facebook is basically an advertising company and decentralizing would put that at risk. Why would he give up all that revenue? More importantly, do you think Wall Street would give that up?
I understand the potential exists to hit Facebook..but, realistically, I am not sure Steemit is much competition. Facebook offers so many more features than Steemit...The steem blockchain might have more but it is still evolving.
Finally, will Zuckerberg open up the code so that innovation can take place? I also find that unlikely. He will not cede that to the general public and putting himself at risk of being forked.
Hence we have a closed, centralized system that is simply called blockchain. Is this any different than what Kodak proposed (albeit FB much bigger than Kodak and more powerful)?
Excellent response. Unless facebook decentralizes, which they will not, then having a FB coin doesn't really do much for them. unless they plan to start paying users for comments and likes, then nothing has really changed. paying users for content makes Steem worth something. FB coin would simply be a novelty coin.
EOS will allow many new alternatives to social media to derail Facebook in superb fashion. coin or no coin, facebook is taking millions from their users by exploiting them with ads. decentralization eliminates the middle man and pays the user directly. decentralization = no more middle man taking profits. facebook is part of a dyeing breed of centralized websites. steem (or future alternatives) will take time to onboard the amount of users that exist on facebook today. zuckerberg can see the writing on the wall and he is threatened by this crypto space in a very large way!
I've been thinking along similar lines....that in order for there to be mass adoption of crypto, people will have to feel that it's safe, legal, respected, normal, etc...and the way to do that is to have big names like FB put their weight behind them. That would be the way to subvert the anonymous potentials of crypto and decentralization and keep power in the hands of those who wish not to see their position disrupted. Facebook is more than just a business model...it's also a great tool for open source intelligence which I'm guessing will become more important to the power structure in comnmg times of crisis. Why not make people financially benefit from Facebook in the short run to keep the platform alive simultaneously pushing people into accepting crypto regulation, but in the long run, they become financially dependent on the addictive platform that also can be used for data mining political views? Indeed, once people are getting income from a platform that reportedly censors posts, it becomes one more mechanism for control.
Indeed facebook working on its own proprietary blockchain and cryprocurrency to deploy on its own platform just speaks for itself. They see where steemit is going with rewarding users with specialized crypto for content and how this is attracting more and more users.. With this, obviously their sales will be affected if users continued diverting to steemit.
Facebook bringing in tokens as well would influence the many users it already has to exchange and use the tokens, completely making him a competition of himself. Being the world's central banker would be in inches to reach for Zuckerberg. Let's just wait and see how this goes. I just hope it doesn't come to pass.
Very interesting theory, but it just seems to far fetched... If Facebook did release a crypto it would DEFINITELY bring crypto to the mainstream
If you havent READ Ready Player One, you should. It talks about the OASIS having the most stable currency and economy in the world. Recent developments seem like that it becoming more of a reality....
@Zer0hedge..FB wouldn't partner with Litecoin, Ethereum, or any other coin. FB already has a tremendous pool of programmers that can write their own version of crypto, borrowing all the best ideas from existing crypto.
Plus, instead of increasing the market cap of some other coin, FB would be reaping the rewards of their own coin market cap.
And you can bet that Zuck is going to retain a large portion of those newly minted coins, perhaps eventually making him the world's first trillionaire (that possibility is too much for Zuck's ego to pass up). And FB will no doubt reward investors, employees, etc, with coins as well.
First thanks for sharing @zer0hedge
Has facebook arrived at the point where microsoft is? They see a great idea and, instead of adopting it, they declare they are going to reinvent sliced bread all over again. Instead, they fall flat on their face. That is microsoft's 'winning' formula. How many times have they tried to get in front of a new industry only to fail?
The problem with Zuk is his greed even though he would deny it. If he controls the currency, there is no way he will be able to stop printing himself up some more just because he likes to roll in it. If more than enough is not enough, then how will even more than more than enough be enough?
nice post.
Steemit is Future. Thanks sir.
Mark has huge control of most of people in modern society. Today they can already tell you if a place is busy or if its not. He has multiple channels to track people: whatsapp, facebook, instagram... How can people be surprised now if he becomes the biggest banker in the world?