The whole point of decentralized cryptocurrencies is getting away from big established institutions, and yet, the entire crypto-market responds sharply to
opinions given by the richest people who benefit most from centralized power.
This is actually huge news. It sounds like he is trying to use decentralization for Facebook. "Giving people the power", as he says.
Zuckerberg used to say he puts the user-experience on #1. Then, he had his IPO, and now the stock holders (including himself) are #1. Paid advertising is probably #2, some other rich corporations #3-8, and the users are somewhere at the bottom around #200.
This is a great news for crypto. I hope Facebook will adopt bitcoin and existing altcoin than creating its own crypto currency. Nevertheless, I am sure more people will be interested in crypto with Facebook support.
If anything, I expect Facebook to compete with Paypal. Think of it like Microsoft using it's market dominance to kill compatition (does anyone even remember Netscape or ICQ?), just like Facebook destroyed other social networks.
If Facebook introduces it's own payment system, it doesn't matter whether or not it'll be decentralized, it will start out with a billion users instantly.
But if he decentralizes facebook, it will be a disaster.
What's with the decentralization hype? Facebook runs on millions of servers, there's nothing there to decentralize.