Director of engineering blockchain: Facebook has appointed one of its senior engineers Evan Cheng as its first “director of engineering blockchain”. 

The new position was confirmed by Facebook on Tuesday and signals the companies seriousness about the technology.

Cheng has previously been responsible for heading up Programming Languages & Runtimes at Facebook. Prior to that, he held a 10-year stint at Apple.

Describing himself as “an engineer and a technical leader” his social accounts also imply that he is an expert in blockchain and cryptocurrency; “day job – programming languages, runtimes, compilers; night job – blockchain, crypto.” 

Director of Engineering Blockchain

The new position is another confirming step that Facebook is easing up on its harsh stance regarding cryptocurrency and is eager to embrace the innovations of blockchain technology. Facebook CEO Zuckerberg has always been an avid admirer of the technology and spoke of his interest on multiple occasions.

However, in January, the company announced a complete ban of crypto advertising on its platform in light of regulatory uncertainties and “to protect its users” from fraudulent opportunists advertising fake ICO’s.

It has since (and only very recently) lifted its conditions surrounding the ban allowing certain types of crypto ads to be posted, suggesting a more lenient stance is emerging.

Also in May, Facebook launched a team to explore blockchain technology. Its long-time head of its Messenger platform and top-executive at Facebook-California, David Marcus, was appointed as head of this team. Marcus is reported to be joined by a few executives from Instagram, a company Facebook also owns.

The Future

Zuckerberg has been vocal about his interest in decentralized technologies. The idea behind his interest is obviously with a vision to apply it to Facebook. With this new appointment, will we see a decentralized Facebook using blockchain in the not-too-distant future?