Facebook Inc. is working on making a cryptocurrency that will let users transfer money on its WhatsApp messaging app, focusing first on the remittances market in India, Bloomberg reported citing the people familiar with the matter.
The company is developing a stablecoin – a type of digital currency pegged to the U.S. dollar – to minimize volatility. Facebook is far from releasing the coin, because it’s still working on the strategy, including a plan for custody assets, or regular currencies that would be held to protect the value of the stablecoin.
WhatsApp, the company’s encrypted mobile-messaging app, is popular in India, with more than 200 million users. The country also leads the world in remittances – people sent $69 billion home to India in 2017, the World Bank said this year.
