Facebook ‘Acqui-hires’ Chainspace’s Research Team, Reports Suggest

By Swati Kishore

Social media behemoth Facebook’s secretive crypto arm has successfully acquired Chainspace, a Blockchain-based startup that specializes in the development of smart contracts. If reports are to be believed then Facebook has integrated most of Chainspace’s research team.

The financial news outlet Cheddar reported, citing unnamed sources, that Facebook’s crypto subsidiary has made its first acquisition in the Blockchain space by acquiring Chainspace. The smart contracts platform was founded by researchers from the University College London.

The report states that the news of Chainspace’s employees working at Faceboook’s crypto division has been confirmed by a spokesperson from the social media giant. Though not much else was revealed:

“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.”

Cheddar reports that the purchase by Facebook was more of an ‘acqui-hire’, which means that more than the technology being built by Chainspace, Facebook was interested in their team of researchers.

As per the website of the Blockchain company, Chainspace is a massive smart contracts platform which leverages a distributed network of Blockchains to achieve speed, privacy, as well scalability.

As we enter the website, a banner is displayed at the top of the website that reads as follows:

“We’re excited to announce that the team is moving on to something new. Chainspace’s code and documentation will still be open source, and all previously published academic work remains available.”

Facebook’s Blockchain division has been working on crypto-related projects for quite some time now. In December 2018, we reported how Facebook plans to launch its digital currency for use in WhatsApp, we had also reported how Facebook was on a Blockchain hiring spree.

As per reports, the social media company has as much as 40 employees working on its Blockchain initiative. The initiative is headed by a Coinbase Board Member and the Former Head of Messenger, David Marcus.

It is interesting to note that Mark Zuckerberg had made researching cryptocurrencies as one of his personal challenges for the year 2018. With that said, let’s see what Facebook has in store for the crypto community in 2019. The social media giant has a massive user base, and any step in the direction of Blockchain could facilitate the adoption of cryptocurrencies by the masses.