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Eric Ly was an expert in software before creating LinkedIn with a small group of like-minded individuals while studying at Stanford in 2002. He worked at companies like IBM and Steve Job’s NeXT before launching the social media platform for professionals, which was sold to Microsoft in 2016 for $26 billion. He left LinkedIn in 2006 and launched an app for events in 2007. The entrepreneur is now involved in initial coin offerings (ICO), developing a “reputation system” to help investors make solid decisions when it comes to moving around cryptocurrencies. He recently met up with the folks at CoinTelegraph and gave his take on the current social media ban on cryptocurrency-related promotions.
Facebook and Twitter recently banned ICO ads from their social media platforms, mainly due to fears over backlash if something were to go wrong (such as a $13-million pyramid scam). Said Ly, “I believe that these kind of platforms are conservative protective approach for themselves. Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been asking a lot of questions and subpoenas for information from people and companies. I believe that is a protective measure from a lot of these companies to not engage in new form of not advertising, but activities by ICOs, they probably want to avoid potentially uncertain interactions with SEC.” He added that he doesn’t believe the bans will be permanent, and that they’ll be lifted once regulatory issues are better defined.
Ly said that he doesn’t think a decision has yet been made regarding allowing cryptocurrency and ICO ads on the LinkedIn platform, but that it might be possible down the road. As with Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn needs to protect itself, and he suggests that any move by the platform would be similar to that of the other two social media giants.
Ly’s cryptocurrency trust protocol is called Hub. The idea being the application is to put trust and reputation information on the blockchain, making it accessible to everyone. It would be portable from one marketplace to another, allowing for anyone to use the data. He explains, “It’s sort of like a meta social network if you will…It’s underlying many different kinds of applications, both new and existing. So we’re not necessarily building one social network. We’re trying to enable a trust layer that can work across many different social networks and many different marketplaces…”
Given Ly’s history of coming up with award-winning solutions, Hub could turn out to be a highly useful tool for the cryptocurrency community.
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
