David Marcus chose to step down from the board of directors at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Nearly three months back, Facebook announced the launch of its blockchain initiative which led to conflict of interest.
Marcus, a former president of PayPal, has attended meetings with the open source payments technology company, Stellar. He held his position as the vice president at Facebook since 2014 and joined the board at Coinbase in December last year. Five months after joining Coinbase, Marcus was titled Facebook’s blockchain research lead.
Marcus addressed the topic of integrating Messenger and crypto with CNBC in February. He cited concerns about payments utilising crypto being very expensive and slow, as a reason to not expect the integration anytime soon. He also added that the integration may become a possibility once the blockchain community had ‘fixed all the issues’.
Marcus provided a statement to CoinDesk on Friday addressing the issue of his resignation from Coinbase saying it was “because of the new group I’m setting up at Facebook around blockchain”, adding:
“Getting to know Brian, who’s become a friend, and the whole Coinbase leadership team and board has been an immense privilege. I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the talent and execution the team has demonstrated during my tenure, and I wish the team all the success it deserves going forward.”
Twitter user Ran NeuNer, also speculated about the cause because Marcus stepping down from his position at the Coinbase board.
Marcus’s departure has come in less than a month after the fact that Coinbase was the only platform that was allowed to advertise on Facebook during its blanket ban on cryptocurrency ads. In a blog, Facebook outlined how it would update its policy of allowing ads that promote cryptocurrency related content from pre-approved advertisers.
