Meta (MVRS)

Basics

• Fka Facebook. Facebook rebranded to Meta (31-10-2021) in an embrace of the metaverse + NFTs.

Main crypto projects

• Diem fka Libra. And the Novi wallet which will use Pax Dollars (20-10-2021) as the main currency during the test (instead of their own DIEM).
• "Facebook is set to begin testing its cryptocurrency this year with plans for a public rollout in 2020, reports the BBC; referred to internally as GlobalCoin but then announced as Libra, the company is expected to reveal details of the project this summer; the digital currency will underpin the firm’s Project Libra, a worldwide payments network; Facebook has sought regulatory advice from the US Treasury, and held discussions with Bank of England head Mark Carney"

Big takeaways from the report:

1. Facebook is planning to launch a full payments network (rather than just remittances) and in discussions with payment networks Visa and Mastercard, payments processors such as giant First Data as well as large e-commerce merchants to support the launch.
2. Facebook is seeking up to $1 billion in investments collectively from these firms in order to act as collateral to bolster and back a stablecoin that will be associated with the payments network.
3. A stablecoin will exist as the currency of the payments system in order to eliminate credit card fees for merchants as well as to avoid the volatility of other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether.
4. The company is considering tying the coin to Facebook's core ads engine, rewarding users for viewing ads and then purchasing goods, similar to how loyalty points rewards work.

• Facebook's Project Libra now counts one in five staff as former PayPal employees, according to Bloomberg's Facebook insiders; per the sources, the coin, which could launch as early as Q3 this year, will be sandboxed in India via Facebook's WhatsApp. Facebook has also picked up two ex-Coinbase employees for its blockchain and other products; Jeff Cartwright has been tapped for policy and compliance work and brings experience from American Express and Goldman Sachs; Mikheil Moucharrafie has been hired as a compliance officer for the social media giant's blockchain project.
• For a timeline so far (12-6-2109) check here

People on Facebook positions

• Marcus, David; Board of Directors at Coinbase, ex-Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook (left 1-12-2021).
• Marc Andreessen; serves on the board of Facebook. His venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has invested more than $227 million in bitcoin-related startups as of July 19, 2015
• David Marcus; Facebook Head of Calibra
• Has around 60 people employed with blockchain related reasons (3-2019)
• The ex-director of DARPA, Regina Dugan, was hired by Google in 2012 to head its Advanced Technology and Projects group, and that she was then hired by Facebook in 2016 to head their “Building 8” research group focusing on experimental technologies like brain sensors and artificial intelligence. 

• Evan Cheng; Director of Engineering at Facebook. Evan is one of the creators of LLVM which generates the low level machine code running every Apple device, as well as much of Google, Nvidia, and Intel.
• Sam Lessin; also advisor for Ampleforth

People who used to work for/with Facebook

• Linden, Lee; Bancor Mobile App Advisor “Lee Linden is an entrepreneur and early stage investor. Previously, he lead Facebook’s emerging initiatives in commerce, including Gifts and the Facebook Card. Lee founded Karma, a breakthrough mobile commerce platform which let smartphone users instantly send real gifts to others without the burden of physical mailing addresses. Karma was acquired by Facebook in early 2012.
• Justin Rosenstein; Bancor Collaboration Software Advisor, is the co-founder of Asana along with Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz
• Badros, Greg; Advisor BAT, Angel Investor; previously: Facebook
• Ben Davenport co-founded Beluga, which was sold to Facebook in 2011 and became Facebook Messenger.

• The Winklevoss twins, (sued Mark for stealing “their” idea)

• One or more are now working (together with) TrueUSD
• Arik Sosman; (was) a member of Calibra

Other links

• Peter Thiel, first outside investor, board of directors
• About the connection between Facebook and DARPA: "First venture capital money totaling $500,000 came to The Facebook from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, founder and former CEO of PayPal. He also serves on the board of radical conservative group Vanguard DAC. Further funding came in the form of $12.7 million dollars from venture capital firm Accel Partners. Accel’s manager, James Breyer, was former chair of the National Venture Capital Association. Breyer served on the National Venture Capital Association’s board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999. This firm works in various aspects of information technology and intelligence, including, most notably, nurturing data mining technologies. Breyer has also served on the board of BBN Technologies, a research and development firm known for spearheading the ARPANET, or what we know today as the internet."
• Client of Trail of Bits.