Op-Ed

Op Ed: What does Facebook’s Crypto Ad Ban Mean for Litecoin

Martin Young | Feb 02, 2018 | 02:15

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The crypto-sphere is full of hearsay and rumor. If nothing else it keeps hopes high in times of adversity, such as right now. Altcoins can go up on a shill or a pump from a whale, and back down on the spread of FUD across social media. It is unlike any other market and is driven largely on impulse at times. Because it is still an embryonic industry, connections can be drawn between large established companies, cryptocurrencies, and potential blockchain adoption.

Crypto-land vented with speculation when Charlie Lee sold off his Litecoin stash and hodlers were left wondering how the coin would survive without its master. Litecoin erupted in December shooting up over 300% in just over a week. It topped out at around $370 and has been on a downward slide ever since shedding over 60% in the process.

According to ZeroHedge, there were accusations of insider trading since Lee was the former Director of Engineering at Coinbase. He has vehemently denied any of this, stipulating that the sale was to avoid any potential conflict of interest with any other companies that may be looking at Litecoin adoption. Lee obviously made a bucket load of cash from the selloff but can now Tweet away with impunity. Additionally, Litecoin started its downward spiral just after Bitcoin Cash was added to Coinbase. Both BCH and LTC are improved versions of BTC in terms of transaction speeds and costs.

Litecoin, Coinbase, and Facebook – Connecting the Dots

About the same time as Lee’s cash out, Coinbase announced the appointment of Facebook executive David Marcus to their board of directors. Marcus was head of Messenger at Facebook and President of Paypal prior to that – he has plenty of experience with mobile-first tech. Following that, in early January, Mark Zuckerberg posted that he is “looking into” cryptocurrency:

With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it. There are important counter-trends to this – like encryption and cryptocurrency – that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I’m interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services.

Earlier this week, the social media giant announced that the platform would be banning adverts for ICOs and cryptocurrencies and what the company termed “financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.“

Muddled Motives

Just like Lee’s selloff to avoid conflict of interest, Facebook’s banning of potential competitors could be right up the same street. If the company was genuinely interested in protecting their users from ‘deceptive practices’ it would take more action against rogue members operating on the platform to spread scams, clickbait, and fraudulent websites. Facebook is still a hotbed of deception and dishonesty with or without ICO advertising, most crypto groups are plagued with this digital detritus. Removing crypto advertising could pave the way for a new partner, it is unlikely to have anything to do with preventing scams.

Whether Facebook partners with Litecoin still remains to be seen, however, Charlie Lee left some breadcrumbs last year by tweeting that 2018 would have one huge surprise for Litecoin:

The Litecoin team has been hard at work working with companies to support Litecoin. Nothing to announce yet, but here's what's in the works:

Merchant processor
Popular online wallet
Goods trading platform
One huge unexpected surprise. 😀

2018 will be a good year for Litecoin!

— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) December 20, 2017

Either way, bigger things abound for cryptocurrencies in 2018 if only everyone could get over the tsunami of mainstream media FUD and focus on the tenet and technology.

[Disclosure; the author of this article is a holder of Litecoin (LTC).]

Will Litecoin be boosted by a new partner in 2018? Who will that partner be? Add your thoughts below.

Images courtesy of DepositPhotos, Litecoin