OREANDA-NEWS. A number of major US corporations, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber, have shown interest in the digital payment system created by Facebook. This was reported on Thursday by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). According to the newspaper, they intend to invest $ 10 million in the creation of a consortium that "will manage the cryptocurrency". In total, Facebook plans to raise about $ 1 billion to support the new currency, called Libra. Libra will be pegged to the dollar to avoid sharp fluctuations in the course, as was the case with Bitcoin, the newspaper pointed out.

The final composition of the consortium has not yet been determined, at the moment more than 10 companies have joined the project. According to the WSJ, some investors don't have complete information on how the Libra blockchain will work yet. At the same time, it's noted that Facebook will not fully control the cryptocurrency. As the newspaper stressed, with the help of the new currency it will be possible to pay for purchases on Facebook and online stores. It is expected that Facebook will provide full information about it next week.

According to the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC, Facebook will launch its own cryptocurrency in the first quarter of 2020. Many users have long expected the company to enter the financial services market. In 2014, Facebook hired David Marcus, the former president of PayPal international payment system, who led the development of blockchain technologies.

Cryptocurrency is a type of digital currency. Its operation is based on blockchain technology - a decentralized database, whose storage devices are not connected to a common server. A large user base, which has about 2.4 billion people, will help make the tool common. This will distinguish Libra from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are still not widely used by the broad masses.