Facebook Increases Focus on Blockchain with One of its Most Senior Engineers
In a major move, Facebook increases focus on blockchain with another Senior Executive reshuffle, as one of its most senior engineers, Evan Cheng becomes Director of Engineering, Blockchain.
In light of the Facebook backlash after the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, industry experts are suggesting that the social networking behemoth could be leveraging blockchain technology to help users control, or potentially monetise their data.
As reported by BCTech report in May this year, Zuckerberg executed one of the biggest restructurings in the companies history, when he moved his highest ranking executives to his Facebook Blockchain Team.
Cheng will be joining the team that includes former Instagram vice president of product Kevin Weil, senior executive James Everingham, and is headed up by David Marcus, formerly the President of Paypal.
The move, spotted by the job title change on Evan Cheng’s Linkedin profile, has been confirmed by facebook today.
According to Cheng’s Linkedin profile, he is a well respected engineer, having spent over twenty years in the industry, with ten of those at Apple, before moving to Facebook as Director of Engineering, Programming Languages and Runtimes, a position he held for nearly three years.
Much like Marcus, who sits on the Board of Directors at Coinbase, Cheng is already active in blockchain. He is an adviser to Zilliqa, a cryptocurrency with a market capitalisation over $1 billion; and ChainLink, a smart contracts solution that boasts a major partnership with SWIFT, connecting fiat currency to the blockchain.
As Facebook increases focus on blockchain, the tech industry is rife with speculation, with Cheng’s specialist knowledge on performance and scalability, indicating the importance and potential of the project.
