Facebook's new cryptocurrency, reportedly known internally as GlobalCoin, will be in "about a dozen countries" by this time next year, per the BBC. And it's going to be about more than just payments, according to an FT rep0rt this week — although the payments space alone is enormous.
Why it matters: "It should be as easy to send money to someone as it is to send a photo," says CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Given how many photos are shared across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp every day, it's clear that he sees an enormous opportunity here.
Gen Z's top 5 favorite brands are Google, Netflix, Youtube, Amazon and Oreo, according to a recent Morning Consult poll.
Why it matters: The country's youngest consumers are going to help shift America's religion, racial makeup and urban concentration by 2040 — and they'll also affect how well companies succeed as their spending power increases.
Welcome to our sad, new, distorted reality — the explosion of fake: fake videos, fake people on Facebook, and daily cries of "fake news."
Driving the news: This weekwe reached a peak fake, with Facebook saying it had deleted 2.2 billion fake accounts in three months, a fake video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi going viral, and Trump going on a fresh "fake news" tear.
Snapchat is currently in discussions with "major record labels" to create more options for users to incorporate music into posts, the Wall Street Journal reports.
What to watch: Music content is now a necessity for social media, a former Snapchat employee told the WSJ. Snapchat is looking to add features that mirror TikTok and Instagram Stories — likely, as a way to compete.
Facebook plans to begin testing its "GlobalCoins" cryptocurrency by the end of this year, in anticipation of launching digital payments systems in nearly a dozen countries by 2020, BBC reports.
Catch up quick: Facebook's plans to develop a new cryptocurrency have reportedly involved allowing users to transfer money in WhatsApp, according to reporting on the company's strategy last year.
