David Marcus,the man spearheading Facebook’s blockchain effort, has gotten a tremendous amount of spotlight lately. The rapid emergence of Libra has dominated the coverage of other crypto-related developments, as it became apparent that the social media giant’s inroad into the realm of digital assets will have most serious consequences for both the blockchain sector and the global financial system in general.
While previously the crypto industry has hardly ever had one key spokesperson — which is perhaps a natural and welcome state of affairs for a domain wherein decentralization is the most cherished of values — Libra’s newfound position at the center of global-level regulatory debate about the future shape of finance propels the project’s charismatic head to serve as the envoy for the whole cryptocurrency space.
Like it or not, old-school legislators in the United States and beyond are used to dealing with specific people representing interest groups and industry associations, so Marcus’ two appearances before the U.S. Congress have likely rendered him not just “Mr. Facebook Cryptocurrency,” but simply “Mr. Cryptocurrency” in the eyes of many people in high offices. But how did a Paris-born, Geneva-raised college dropout end up in this capacity of prominence?
Early Adopter,
David Marcus is believed to be among the first in the world of big tech to start experimenting with cryptocurrencies, as Asaf Fybish, co-founder of blockchain marketing firm GuerrillaBuzz, told Cointelegraph:
“David Marcus is actually considered as one of the first top Silicon Valley executives to adopt and support bitcoin. In 2013, at the LeWeb conference in Paris, Marcus stated the fact that he is a big fan of bitcoin and owns a stash of it. He called bitcoin a store of value and a distributed ledger. Getting this type of support back in 2013 was pretty exciting and we can tell that David has a sense when it comes to blockchain and cryptocurrencies in particular.”