Ever since Facebook’s Libra was first announced earlier this year, it seems like cryptocurrency and social media just go hand in hand. A blockchain startup and the subsidiary of IOV Labs, RSK, has announced that it has purchased a social media platform called Taringa, based in Argentina. This gives the company access to the platform’s 30 million+ account holders.
Taringa Users Can Get Crypto for Content
The partnership will create a rewards program in which users of Taringa can garner digital RIF tokens for the content they post. The coin has a market cap of approximately $46 million.
IOV Labs CEO Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar explains that the presence of crypto in Latin America is growing at an exponential rate. Thus, it only made sense to partner with a social media company primarily used by Spanish speakers. He states:
If you got to the first world and you start talking about bitcoin and decentralized platforms, you need to explain why. In Latin America, you don’t need to explain why. People understand why instantly, so they jump right into the how and who. It’s a different reaction. That’s exactly why we chose this social network.
At press time, Taringa is among the most popular social media companies in both Latin America and Spain, and has garnered more users than Skype, Snapchat and LinkedIn in these regions. It is also utilized by nearly 30 percent of these nations’ internet users.
Unfortunately, crypto use, while growing, is still considered a “niche industry,” according to Zaldivar, who claims that there are only about 40 million crypto wallets being used across the globe. Zaldivar believes that the introduction of Libra – Facebook’s new crypto project – is likely to change all that and make cryptocurrency more mainstream.
He explains:
The crypto space has had trouble at times trying to reach audiences outside its core community of early adopters and visionaries. This is a big opportunity to learn how to turn these communities potentially into shared economies and bring these technologies to the masses.
The downside is that Libra is experiencing further regulation hurdles, along with a lack of trust amongst Facebook users and legislators, which according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, could potentially delay its purported 2020 release. Since Facebook’s ties to Cambridge Analytica were made public back in 2018, the company has experienced a serious drop in trust, and many are wondering how the company means to keep people’s private financial data secure.
Zuckerberg commented in an interview that he is working hard to address everyone’s concerns and is seeking feedback and constructive criticism when it comes to what should be done to enhance Libra’s properties.
Changing Things Up
He says:
That’s a very different approach than what we might have taken five years ago, but I think it’s the right way for us to do this.