Facebook’s GlobalCoin might hit the market with a whimper

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If you expect Facebook to help spread cryptocurrency adoption with their new “GlobalCoin,” a look at their user base might cause you to have second thoughts. Diar has performed an analysis of Facebook’s demographics, and they don’t bode well for the end goal of global digital currency.

The outlet breaks down Facebook’s active user base into two major groups, both of which seem unlikely to be key demographics for cryptocurrency adoption. They either are unlikely to want to learn about the crypto, or will have no money to put into the system.

The first group, which they label as “woke and broke,” are the 45% of Facebook users under the age of 34. The problem with this group is that if they even get interested in GlobalCoin, they won’t have the money to buy any. They write, “The small userbase of young people who are likely to be abreast with current technological developments has a fairly weak purchasing power.”

Of the 55% of users over the age of 35, even if they have the money to spend, Diar suspects they would be unwilling to trade in their existing preferences for the option. “The social media behemoth, however, faces an aging user base whose apt to learn about cryptocurrency unlikely,” they write.

This is a difficult problem for the social media giant to crack. If the user is young and this is the first crypto they ever learn, they might not have the money to use it with. If the user is a little too old, they might have little incentive to switch over. The prime demographic of users with the ability to adapt to the technology and have spending power to use it will also be in the best position to question why they’d want to be nailed down to one platform’s coin, when better public blockchain options are available.

Facebook isn’t doomed to fail, necessarily, but despite the massive advantages they bring to their project, with a 2 billion user base and billions of dollars in development funds, they might simply be the wrong company to roll out such an ambitious project. They changed the world once with a revolutionary idea, now it’s someone else’s turn to take the next step.