Barclays: Facebook’s Cryptocurrency Could Raise $19 Billion And ‘Reinvigorate’ Company

In today’s cryptocurrency expert analysis, we are featuring digital currency news coming from Barclays – which focuses on the latest initiative by Facebook to enter the crypto space.

The Facebook cryptocurrency which is dubbed under different names, is supposed to help facilitate cross-border payments and will have stablecoin properties. As CNBC reported, it is worth at least $19 billion in revenue within the next two years.

According to Ross Sandler who is an internet analyst for Barclays, the annual revenues for Facebook could jump by $19 billion and the social media giant has just over 3 billion users. As he said, the stock will gain renewed confidence as soon as Facebook begins finding ways to profit outside of advertising and other means that compromise user privacy.

He told CNBC the following:

“Merely establishing this revenue stream starts to change the story for Facebook shares in our view. Any attempt to build out revenue streams outside of advertising, especially those that don’t abuse user privacy are likely to be well-received by Facebook’s shareholders.”

What’s true is the fact that Facebook and Google are both leaders when it comes to targeted advertising, which has led to a lot of criticism and regulatory investigations. In times when user growth is continuing at an impressive rate, the company has around half the world on its platforms – and even more.

This is why Sandler speculates that the cryptocurrency doesn’t only have to be a peer-to-peer payments mechanism – but also a token that could be used for things such as premium content as well. Monetizing it, on the other hand, will create a lot of unique opportunities for Zuckerberg and Facebook.

Similarly, in regions like Venezuela where the local currency is unreliable, Facebook can bring users a more reliable stablecoin in a mostly digital space. In regions that ban Facebook, however, the company will have difficulties offering the service to its global user base by using blockchain.

To justify his speculations, Sandler noted that the head of the cryptocurrency development team is a former PayPal executive – David Marcus. The industry is highly regulated on a global basis and the security implications of monetizing every account are more than just obvious.