Social media giant Facebook signed on more than a dozen backers for its GlobalCoin cryptocurrency, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that each of the new backers will invest roughly $10 million in the project, which has been developed in secrecy for more than six months, as part of a governing consortium for the cryptocurrency.
“We believe this may prove to be one of the most important initiatives in the history of the company to unlock new engagement and revenue streams,” RBC Capital Markets’ Mark Mahaney and Zachary Schwartzman said in a note on Thursday.
Mahaney and Schwartzman are expecting the currency to be utilized for payments, commerce, applications and gaming across its other platforms as well, which includes Instagram and encrypted messaging service WhatsApp.
In addition, the two experts mentioned previously reported expectations that Facebook will release their currency’s white paper on June 18 to explain the fundamental protocols that will underpin the project. RBC says once the paper is released, it plans to offer an analysis of it “to help investors analyze the underlying cryptoeconomics of the token.”
Facebook announced it was launching GlobalCoin last December, though the company claims it had been looking into crypto as far back as the end of 2017. GlobalCoin is now expected to be unveiled on June 18.