The founder of an online bank has accused social media giant Facebook of stealing his company’s logo for their new crypto project, Calibra. This is the latest eyebrow that has been raised since Zuckerberg and co decided to take on the world’s banks with their latest offering.
SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT?
According to a report by CNBC, Wall Street trader turned start-up CEO, Stuart Sopp said he sought the help of a San Francisco based design firm called Character to create the logo for his company in 2016. Apparently the same firm also worked on Facebook’s secretive crypto project which was unveiled earlier this week.
There is no doubt that the two logos are uncannily similar and Sopp was not amused telling the news outlet;
“This is a funny way to try and create trust in a new global financial system – by ripping off another fintech firm. Facebook has all the money and resources in the world. If they truly wanted to make banking more inclusive and fair, they should’ve come up with their own ideas and branding, like we have.”
The report added that neither Facebook nor Character responded when contacted for comments. It isn’t the first time the web monopoly has made a questionable move. Funny that last year Facebook bans all crypto advertising and then coincidentally launches its own crypto coin the following year.
The fintech startup Current is a minnow compared to Facebook; it has just 45 employees and 350,000 accounts. Sopp has a similar vision in that the current banking system is bloated, expensive and impersonal. His firm started offering products to teens and has expanded to zero fee accounts for gig economy workers.
He added that they spent months working on the concept for the logo which represents a wave symbolizing the movement of both money and people.
“We put six months of hard work into this with that design firm, which they basically reused for Facebook without changing much. Facebook is a big company that should have done their due diligence on this.”
this is what happens when you only have 1 crayon left pic.twitter.com/2JY5JfesQD
— Current (@current) June 19, 2019
QUESTIONS RAISED
The big question raised over the Libra crypto project is one of trust, and this latest incident proves it even further. Facebook can barely be trusted with personal data, and recent scandals such as Cambridge Analytica serve as testament. What billionaire Zuckerberg and his consortium of tech giants will do with a currency that a potential 2 billion people may be using is the stuff of nightmares. As Bloomberg aptly put it last month “more than 2 billion users spending one currency, controlled by one billionaire. What’s to worry about?”
Should Facebook be trusted with crypto? Add your thoughts below.
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