In a captivating revelation during the “What bitcoin Did” podcast with Peter McCormack, David Marcus, former leader of Facebook’s Libra project and now CEO and co-founder of Lightspark, made intriguing comments about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s perspective on bitcoin .
Zuckerberg’s vision for bitcoin
In the exchange between McCormack and Marcus, the former asked: “You may not want to answer, but is Zuck a Bitcoiner?” Marcus stated, “Yes, yes, yes. He appreciates bitcoin, but I think we had a lot of conversations about this (Libra), especially when I was struggling to see how we can decentralize this enough.”
“Mark Zuckerberg is a bitcoiner,” says former top Facebook executive @DavidMarcus. pic.twitter.com/xTvHgdOD0I
— Documenting ₿itcoin (@DocumentingBTC) October 11, 2023
However, Marcus quickly veered away from the topic of bitcoin again and went into more detail about Facebook’s Libra initiative: “We had a lot of conversations and the tension was between full decentralization and the reality of scalability issues, and then the volatility that we would have.” to face”. putting people through them so they can use our product.”
Zuckerberg’s interest in btc is not an entirely new revelation. In May 2021, a wave of speculation hit the crypto community when Zuckerberg named his two pet goats “bitcoin” and “Max.” The announcement, while not directly indicating his investment or ideological stance, certainly created a storm on social platforms such as Twitter.
This sparked considerable speculation on Twitter (now known as X), with many analysts and enthusiasts theorizing about Zuckerberg’s potential interest in btc. Speculation was growing that the Facebook CEO could soon publicly announce his inaugural btc acquisition. However, such an announcement never materialized.
Additionally, the goats’ name gave rise to various interpretations, with Anthony Pompliano of Morgan Creek Digital. suggestion that Zuckerberg could be signaling his alignment with bitcoin maximalists, while Robert Leshner, CEO of Compound Labs, humorously suggested that Zuckerberg “will have bitcoin Max (imalists) for dinner.”
It should be noted that in a interview In Rolling Stone, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey shared that Zuckerberg had once served him a goat from his farm that he personally slaughtered, aligning with Zuckerberg’s goal of only consuming meat he had grown himself.
Marcus’ efforts with Lightspark
Transitioning to his current company, Marcus shared about the conception and ambitions of Lightspark. Having faced the challenges of the financial sector firsthand, he is driven to reform it. He strongly believes in btc as a unique and neutral form of money on the internet.
Drawing from his own experiences, Marcus fixed:
Much can be theorized about the experience we’ve had, but having lived it has changed my worldview and appreciation such that I now have this unwavering conviction that bitcoin is the only form of internet-neutral money that will ever exist.
Lightspark, under Marcus’ leadership, is dedicated to perfecting the Lightning Network. It aims to address its limitations by improving usability and solving operational problems. Lightspark innovations are aimed at simplifying Lightning’s channel-based mechanism, which in turn helps in more efficient setup and maintenance of Lightning Network nodes.
At press time, btc was trading at $26,831, down 4.5% in the last 4 days.
Featured image from Pymnts.com, chart from TradingView.com