Is Facebook’s Ban On Crypto Ads In Anticipation Of A Litecoin Integration
Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
by Tyler Durden
Authored by Dennis Consorte via Cryptosumer,
In early January rumors started spreading about whether Facebook would either adopt Litecoin or create its own cryptocurrency. On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it would block all cryptocurrency and ICO advertising on its platform.
Coincidence? Let's look at the details.
Between December 6th and 17th of 2017, Litecoin (LTC) tripled in value, from $102.93 to $360.66 according to CoinGecko. Three days after it started to decline from its all-time-high, Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin announced that he sold off all of his LTC. Since then,** Litecoin has been on a mostly downward trend** and currently sits at $159.50.
There has been some speculation about whether Lee's sell-off had an impact on the prices of Litecoin, and there have even been accusations of insider trading, given that he was the Director of Engineering at Coinbase. He denies these allegations and explained that his decision to dump his LTC was to remove any sort of conflict of interest between his influence and any potential gains. Taking the financial gains out of the equation, it stands to reason that Lee may now tweet more freely about his thoughts while focusing on his skills as an engineer.
At the time that Lee sold off his LTC, Coinbase announced the appointment of Facebook executive, David Marcus to their board of directors. David Marcus is the Head of Messenger at Facebook, with expertise in mobile-first products. Prior to that, he was President of PayPal, where he accelerated the overall growth of the company. The appointment of Marcus to the Coinbase board of directors sparked some speculation.
Tom Luongo published the story on December 20, which was later picked up by Zero Hedge and various other publications. According to Luongo, Charlie's announcement prompted a big sell-off in the wake of Coinbase adding Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to its platform. He saw the negative response from the market as temporary, though Litecoin is still on a decline.
From a technology standpoint however, it's a promising coin. It's lighter, faster and cheaper than Bitcoin, is fully capable of smart contracts and according to Luongo, it has a "payment processing layer to facilitate point-of-sale convenience while retaining proof-of-work security." It has the sort of technology built into it that an organization like Facebook might find appealing.
Two weeks after this speculative article came out, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he's "looking into cryptocurrency." In his January 5th announcement on Facebook, Zuckerberg said:
"Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed technology would be a decentralizing force. 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."
This brings us to today. According to a CNBC article by Kurt Wagner, "Facebook is banning all ads that promote cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, in an effort to prevent people from advertising what the company is calling 'financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.'" In other words, if you launch an ICO, or want to promote a cryptocurrency-related group or business, you're probably out of luck, no matter how legitimate your business is.
Litecoin founder Charlie Lee previously tweeted that in 2018 there will be "One huge unexpected surprise." > The Litecoin team has been hard at work working with companies to support Litecoin. Nothing to announce yet, but here's what's in the works: >
Merchant processor Popular online wallet Goods trading platform One huge unexpected surprise. 😀
2018 will be a good year for Litecoin!
— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) December 20, 2017
If indeed Facebook is looking to tie its business to cryptocurrency and/or blockchain technology, as Zuckerberg himself has suggested, whether it's by way of Litecoin or some other technology, then it stands to reason that such a ban on advertising would clear out the competition and would allow Facebook to corner the market on this technology, using their tremendous platform to push it out to a massive audience.
It's only a matter of time before we are able to confidently analyze the motivation behind Facebook's ban on crypto advertising. It could very well be that they genuinely want to prevent scammers from taking advantage of their audience. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that they are paving the way for a new Facebook coin offering, utilizing the blockchain to facilitate transactions on Facebook to purchase goods, advertising space and other things of value.
I think that if/when they do a coin integration they will start their own. There is enough buzz in crypto for a facebook coin to be bid to a massive valuation. Zuckerberg/facebook could sink billions into it to make sure it has a nice start and get everyone excited and let the market take it from there. International payments over Facebook would be a breeze like we chat or steemit. I see no need for them to "buy into" another coin
Great post @zer0hedge . While it is entirely possible that Facebook wants to get rid of the scam ads that involve cryptocurrency. It's important that we speculate on the recent chain of events because they actually have significant WEIGHT in this matter. This isn't the first time we've seen a chain of events happen in this space that have lead to massive market movements.
Don't believe me? In 2017 around November, we saw a massive BTC correction and a MASSIVE rise in BCH. I'm not even talking about when it was added to Coinbase. I'll get to that later. It's important that we connect the dots in order to possibly PREPARE for what could happen in the future. After all, our money's in this.
Let's look at Coinbase and BCH. Leading up to BCH being added on Coinbase, we saw massive speculation from news sources talking about "what will coinbase add next?" We saw ripple pass Ethereum out of PURE speculation. We saw new money enter the market. We even saw "leaked" images of XRP being on coinbase's "beta" platform. Then Coinbase had an "early" release of BCH on its platform and all hell broke loose.
Were they insider trading? Probably. Look at the increase in BCH volume days before we saw the release.
Point is people, we need to connect the dots.
never thought of that
maybe he'll try to do to them with Cryptos the same thing he did to them with Social Media =p
personally I still give the vast credit to Mark since he changed and expanded the idea so much, but gotta admit it was the Winklevii that first spotted the basic idea: the basic concept of a social media 'network,' opposed to the social media 'pages' (up until that point, a la MySpace).
could even say, the analogy worse further because the same sort of Winklevii tunnel vision is present with BTC, where they just envised a simple local network with one goal, and then Mark comes in and says 'no no no you're doing it wrong.' ... in the same way, they could be so focused on the financial POV and their hard-on to make BTC 'virtual gold,' and then Mark swoops in again and tries to socialize it -- again with his own version.
which, again, means why would Mark and Facebook use Litecoin? does Mark have a history of giving credit where it's due or sharing? :P
never underestimate the greed of the insecure obsessive-compulsive control freak with mild Asperger's and a relevancy-god complex =)
he has a history of acquisitions though, so I guess it depends if you wanna say Cryptos are more like FB or more like INS or OR.
and, u never know, if it's trying to change his ways then you can do a lot worse than working with Charlie Lee to 'rehabilitate your image' by empowering people with decentralizing and democratize money...
so, I guess it depends, which Mark do you think will bring cryptos to social media ^_^ or how bad you think he wants to be the 'good guy' so he can be President (or at least a Tech Jesus like Steve Jobs).
@zer0hedge..bro The Surprise is XRB beats the pants off every other crypto. Transactions take less than 5 seconds and there are zero transaction fees. XRB is the crypto you could actually buy a cup of coffee with i'm shilling the fuck out of XRB now so in a year or so I can say "told ya so!" and brag about how smart I am and shit all over you bitchez and whatnot. This will be my proof.could even say, the analogy worse further because the same sort of Winklevii tunnel vision is present with BTC, where they just envised a simple local network with one goal, and then Mark comes in and says 'no no no you're doing it wrong.' ... in the same way, they could be so focused on the financial POV and their hard-on to make BTC 'virtual gold,' and then Mark swoops in again and tries to socialize it -- again with his own version.which, again, means why would Mark and Facebook use Litecoin? does Mark have a history of giving credit where it's due or sharing? :never underestimate the greed of the insecure obsessive-compulsive control freak with mild and, u never know, if it's trying to change his ways then you can do a lot worse than working with Charlie Lee to 'rehabilitate your image' by empowering people with decentralizing and democratize money...
so, I guess it depends, which Mark do you think will bring cryptos to social media ^_^ or how bad you think he wants to be the 'good guy' so he can be President (or at least a Tech Jesus like Steve Jobs)...thank you for sharing with us...
You're Absolutely Right For info of XRB
I appreciate your comments @durgaani
Just because it's better doesn't mean it will get adopted, partnerships are huge and if litecoin partners with FB watch out
Hi @durgaani I'm gonna have to agree with @jakeybrown. Better tech does not always equate to adoption. However, I do agree with you on the control aspect of Zuckerberg. Given his track record and the censorship we're seeing with Facebook. It's hard to say that he's thinking about integrating Litecoin or decentralization of Facebook in the form of a cryptocurrency. He definitely wants to maintain control. The question is a matter of.... HOW?
Without something along the lines of them adapting litecoin I don't see in what way people are going to want to keep staying on their software for much longer... I mean sure, some people will remain on Facebook and continue with the depressive and souless behavior... But for the most part, many are realizing Facebook purposefully distorts reality and monitors people's online behavior and it is just a negative kind of zone...
If Facebook found some innovative way of monetizing their likes, or something along those lines, to be able to quash decentralized platforms like Steem...
I don't know... That might actually work. I'm going to bank on the idea that they are too greedy for their own self-good and will end up getting boycotted by an angry sliver of the world's global population...
Then no matter how much predatory monopoly buying up of the competition they try, they'll never be able to take down platforms like Steem...
That's the beauty of this place... It can't get bought off. Not unless they bought every single last steem ever user here has...
Come to think of it, if they were paying 100 dollars on the Steem... Maybe I would sell out to Facebook too LOL!
As the bankers, globalists and SJW's go so goes fb. What the fuck else is new. It's a CIA data gathering portal with pictures of your neighbor's cat to make it seem totally innocuous. fb cannot and will not prove they are separate from government surveillance ...
You do realize you just copied and pasted the same sentence several times... right?
Yeah sorry for that ..i type comment in note pad and after that enter here..so by mistake its happed...thank you for your correction..
I agree with you.
more like, companies work with coins like Litecoin and Ripple to learn blockchain, but in the end, why would they adopt someone else's when they can just create their own and control price fluctuations. because, as Ripple shows, banks and companies can't give two shits about decentralization they just like blockchain ledgers.
that said, Facebook is desperate to bring people back to FB so 'cryptos' are a great way to do that.
to quote Social Network, on why people will use FB
MARK "These two things are what drive life at college. Are you having sex or aren't you. It's why people take certain classes, sit
where they sit, go where they go, do what they do, and at its, um, center,you know, that's what theFacebook is gonna be about, People are gonna log on because after all the cake and watermelon there's a chance they're gonna-EDUARDO --meet a girl.
MARK --get laid. Yes.
Replace LAID with PAID, and you got Facebook's second wave.
That, and to quote another classic, "Never underestimate the greed of the other guy." In this case, greed to be more important to socio-political culture.
Mark needs Facebook to have another Web 2.0 moment -- a 3.0 moment -- usher in some new wave of tech. It's why he invests in VR, AI, Cryptos, too. He wants to be seen as a Steve Jobs (who came back and changed how society uses tech a second time with the iPod and iTunes and a third time with the iPhone): not just a one-hit-wonder (creating social media) but show that he can do it again (being seen as the 'Apple of VR' or the 'Apple of Cryptos).
And why? He wants to be President
Because he has political ambitions, and he doesn't want, in 10 years, Facebook then to be as relevant as MySpace is today. He needs to continue to be on the forefront of something that has social impact.
Again, enter virtual reality, AI, cryptos, etc. And he'll bet the farm on it because if he doesn't succeed, either way he loses -- either Facebook dies a slow death or because he died on the wrong tech. The only path forward to still being relevant in 10 years is through VR, AI
thanks for sharing @zer0hedge
In regards to the procedures conducted by Facebook
This is a good step for digital currencies
And industry in general. Where Facebook has been a focus of scams and dual activity that seems to be unchecked for months may lead to the loss of many of their money. "It will be beneficial to the average investor and not indirectly beneficial to the digital currency industry as a whole," said Emerging Digital Currency Advisor Kyle Forky of Inverse. The more we chase these scammers, the better the ecosystem will be to deal with them, so he fully supports this move. He went on to explain that legitimate companies will not be affected by advertising bans
"The majority of the money raised by legitimate currency support operations is through partnerships and relationships. I think the only companies that will be affected by the loss of advertising on the Facebook platform will be people or entities that do not advertise themselves "
Keep in mind that advertising is part of the problem. The most dangerous part is anonymous Facebook members who publish fraudulent digital currency collections. When the company takes action against them, the platform will be a safer place to discuss industry and investments. Until doing so, be careful to always do your research before going into any process or investment.
As for the ltc coin, I am sure that it has a high level of technology and this is what will lead to it not exceeding $ 500 this year
The social networking giant still needs to take action to prevent fraud professionals who often use the platform to deceive others, but this is only the first step. According to the report, ads that violate the company's new policy will be blocked from the basic Facebook app. In addition, it will be blocked in other places where Facebook sells ads, including Instagram and its affiliate advertising network, "Audience". Rob Leithrand, director of advertising technology on Facebook, told the media:
"This policy is comprehensive and wide-ranging; to better detect misleading advertising practices. We will reconsider this policy and how it will be implemented while improving our signals
@zer0hedge...more like, companies work with coins like Litecoin and Ripple to learn blockchain, but in the end, why would they adopt someone else's when they can just create their own and control price fluctuations. because, as Ripple shows, banks and companies can't give two shits about decentralization they just like blockchain ledgers.that said, Facebook is desperate to bring people back to FB so 'cryptos' are a great way to do that.These two things are what drive life at college. Are you having sex or aren't you. It's why people take certain classes, sit`where they sit, you know, that's what theFacebook is gonna be about, People are gonna log on because after all the cake and watermelon there's a chance they're gonna-Mark needs Facebook to have another Web 2.0 moment -- a 3.0 moment -- usher in some new wave of tech. It's why he invests in VR, AI, Cryptos, too. He wants to be seen as a Steve Jobs (who came back and changed how society uses tech a second time with the iPod and iTunes and a third time with the iPhone): not just a one-hit-wonder (creating social media) but show that he can do it again (being seen as the 'Apple of VR' or the 'Apple of Cryptos).And why? He wants to be President
Because he has political ambitions, and he doesn't want, in 10 years, Facebook then to be as relevant as MySpace is today. He needs to continue to be on the forefront of something that has social impact...
The reason for the decline often see me selling a large amount of them but a very strong currency competing for the first trades
We will start with the most basic question: What is Litecoin?
Litecoin is a user-to-user or peer-to-peer encrypted crypto. This is an open source software project released under the MIT / X11 license, which means that it imposes only very limited restrictions on its reuse.
Litecoin is, in many ways, similar to Bitcoin since it is also considered a digital currency and a digital payment system. With Litecoin encryption techniques are used for two very important features:
Regulate the generation of Litecoin units;
Check the transfer of funds and secure transactions.
Although Litecoin and Bitcoin are similar in many ways, there are some major differences between the two crypto currencies. @zer0hedge