$ Blockchain Board

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Facebook is launching a new team dedicated to the blockchain. Messenger’s David Marcus is going to run it.

Blockchain apps will be huge EPAZ

What is the blockchain? Facebook wants to find out, too.
By Kurt Wagner May 8, 2018, 3:50pm EDT

Justin Sullivan / Getty
What is the blockchain? And how should Facebook be using it?

Finding answers to those questions is now the responsibility of David Marcus, the Facebook executive who has, until this week, been running the company’s standalone messaging app, Messenger.

Marcus is leaving Messenger to take over a new internal team dedicated to exploring blockchain technology, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The team will be small at launch, fewer than a dozen people, but will include a few key Instagram executives who are moving over to join Marcus: Instagram’s VP of Engineering, James Everingham, and Instagram’s VP of Product, Kevin Weil.

Messenger’s head of product, Stan Chudnovsky, will take over the Messenger app and its team.

Facebook Head of Product for Messenger Stan Chudnovsky
Facebook Head of Product for Messenger Stan Chudnovsky Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch
The move is noteworthy for a couple of reasons:

As the former president of PayPal, Marcus has a lot of payments expertise and has been in charge of Messenger through a lot of significant changes over the years. In fact, Facebook’s decision to split Messenger out of the core app so that users had to download the standalone app in order to receive messages on mobile happened during Marcus’s first month on the job. He oversaw Messenger’s push into customer service bots, shopping and, more recently, advertising. His departure from that role is notable, especially since Messenger is just starting to ramp up its advertising business.
The blockchain, which serves as the technical foundation for all cryptocurrencies — like bitcoin — is all the rage. Facebook’s decision to pursue blockchain technology will most certainly add some validity to the crypto industry, which has been very chaotic. This doesn’t mean that Facebook will build its own cryptocurrency, but there are many ways that blockchain technology could be used that have nothing to do with cryptocurrencies, including encrypted data storage. Marcus does have a personal interest in cryptocurrencies, though. He joined the board of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in December.
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In his new role, Marcus will report to Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer; Chudnovsky will report to Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. Both new roles are part of a much larger Facebook re-org that was announced internally this week; it is arguably the company’s biggest restructuring in history.

Update: Marcus confirmed his new role on his Facebook page Tuesday afternoon.

David Marcus on Tuesday:

"After nearly four unbelievably rewarding years leading Messenger, I have decided it was time for me to take on a new challenge. I'm setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage Blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch.

When I joined Messenger, under 300 million people were using it every month, since then we've added well over 1 billion people. We've crafted many new experiences from video chat to P2P payments, a capable camera and new features like games. We opened the platform and now over 200,000 developers are creating experiences and over 8 billion messages are sent between people and businesses every month. Looking forward, I'm excited about Messenger's upcoming redesign I've shared an early look at this year's F8. I think you're going to love it!

It's been an honor to lead the amazing Messenger team, their commitment to making Messenger the best it can be is unsurpassed. I will miss them but I know Messenger is in great hands with Stan Chudnovsky and they will continue to create amazing experiences for all the people who depend on it around the world.

Messenger is now one of the most important apps in the world, and its future is unbelievably bright. The saying is that the journey is more important than the destination, and what a remarkable journey this was!

Onward!