According to financial news outlet Cheddar, Facebook has acquired a blockchain startup called Chainspace.

Another move for the tech giant into the cryptocurrency space perhaps?

Chainspace

Founded by University College London researchers, the Chainspace blockchain describes itself as “a planetary scale smart contracts platform” and is comprised of a “distributed web of blockchains for scalability, speed, and privacy.”

According to its website, the company says that it is excited to be “moving onto something new.” Assumedly this is its new venture with Facebook.

Facebook Acquires Chainspace?

Facebook has confirmed that it has hired former Chainspace employees into its blockchain division. However, this is all it will divulge at the moment. Facebook usually plays its cards very close to its chest, so we don’t know much more:

“Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology. This new small team is exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share.”

It could be very plausible that Facebook wants the team behind Chainspace and not the platform itself. The acquisition was, according to Facebook an “acqui-hire“ and a company spokesperson has reportedly denied that the company acquired Chainspace technology.

Facebook Stablecoin?

The company remains tight-lipped about any crypto project in development. However, that hasn’t stopped analysts from guessing. The most reached consensus is that Facebook is developing its own fiat-backed stablecoin, which will let users send money via its WhatsApp messaging app.

>> Coinbase Now Offers PayPal Withdrawals in Europe

Though nothing is certain, the tech giant has been hiring blockchain developers in their droves. It currently has around 40 employees working on this upcoming crypto project, the initiative being led by David Marcus.

Marcus is the head of Facebook Messenger and is a former Coinbase board member. He hinted at the project in 2018 when he stated that Facebook had formed a group “to explore how to best leverage blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch.”

What do you think of Facebook’s Chainspace acquisition? Do you believe it only wants the team and not the tech?

Featured Image: Twitter

Around $190 million in cryptocurrency has been lost and locked away somewhere online where no one can reach it. What’s to blame? Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, QuadrigaCX.

Back in December, the cryptocurrency exchange’s founder perished while in India. According to CoinDesk, a court filing states that the company does not have access to most of the funds, because the founder held the private keys. As of late-January, around 115,000 users have balances with the exchange.

The company announced it has filed for creditor protection but did not give full details as to why. Now, the filing itself gives answers. The company states that all the funds from the company were kept in offline, cold-storage wallets.

QuadrigaCX explained:

“For the past weeks, we have worked extensively to address our liquidity issues, which include attempting to locate and secure our very significant cryptocurrency reserves held in cold wallets, and that are required to satisfy customer cryptocurrency balances on deposit, as well as sourcing a financial institution to accept the bank drafts that are to be transferred to us. Unfortunately, these efforts have not been successful.”

>> Ethereum 2.0 Inches Closer, Pre-Release Stable

While not all funds were kept in cold storage, it remains unknown at this time what portion was held in hot or cold wallets. Most exchanges keep a large reserve of their digital token in cold storage to prevent theft, and most exchanges that have been hacked are the ones with crypto stored in hot wallets that are easily accessible.

The company is evaluating the ways in which it can pay its customers back, if it isn’t successful in locating the funds. So far, there hasn’t been any success and the company is considering selling off its operating platform. The website is still down entirely for “maintenance” as QuadrigaCX scrambles to come up with a solution. At this time, no funds can be withdrawn from the system.

Featured Image: Twitter