Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday he plans to study cryptocurrencies and other decentralizing technologies as part of a larger bid to improve the social networking service he co-founded.
Aptly in a Facebook post, Zuckerberg outlined what he called personal challenges for the year ahead, noting that one is to study the "positive and negative aspects" of cryptocurrency and encryption.
Zuckerberg went on to note that his theme for this year is to focus on "fixing important issues" in technology, media and government. "I'm looking forward to bringing groups of experts together to discuss and help work through these topics," he wrote.
Still, it's his comments on decentralization that have the blockchain world astir.
Lauded for its ability to create valuable, global peer-to-peer networks, Zuckerberg called cryptocurrencies one of the most interesting questions in technology right now. He added that today, many have lost faith that "technology would be a decentralizing force."
He said:
"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...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."