The tecg titan said it wanted to create a separate, private currency system to allow users to make cross-border payments more easily.
Decentralization is a primary tenet of cryptocurrency. Whereas most currencies are backed by a central bank — the U.S. dollar, for example, is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government — cryptocurrencies are maintained and valued by their users.

The cryptocurrency market is a vast and sometimes confusing place with different coins to choose from.
— In a 1,500-word memo obtained by The New York Times over the weekend, the company’s top lobbyist, Nick Clegg, sought to rebut Haugen’s allegations ahead of her unveiling in an episode of “60 Minutes” on Sunday night. “Social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out,” he said in the memo, in which he called Haugen’s impending accusations, which included blaming Facebook for January’s insurrection at the Capitol, “misleading.” He wrote that “what evidence there is simply does not support the idea that Facebook, or social media more generally, is the primary cause of polarization.”