A number of crypto enthusiasts say that the hours-long outage — affecting Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram — serves as proof that decentralization is the way forward.
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram went down for hours on Monday — and for crypto enthusiasts, it was yet another reminder about the power of decentralization.
The outage has lasted for more than three hours at the time of writing, and it’s very rare for disruption to last this long.
Among those speaking out (on Twitter) was Edward Snowden. Over the weekend, he was passionately tweeting about Bitcoin too — and said that China’s ban had made the world’s biggest cryptocurrency even stronger. He wrote:
“Facebook-owned Whatsapp being down is a reminder that you and your friends should probably be using a more private, non-profit alternative like @Signalapp anyway (or another open-source app of your choice).”
Meanwhile, the Secret Network project said the outage was proof that “we need more decentralized systems for sustainability.”
To make matters worse, a new report suggests that the data of more than 1.5 billion Facebook users is now being sold on a popular hacking forum — including names, emails, phone numbers and user ID numbers.
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Insult to Injury
Facebook’s day to forget comes as Bitcoin’s price continues to surge. At the time of writing, the social networking giant’s market cap stands at $929,034,121,667. BTC has now overtaken it, with a total valuation of $947,042,237,280.
There are a number of decentralized social networks that are already in existence. While this does eliminate the risk of censorship, some platforms have come under criticism for ending up as havens for the far right.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who is also a vocal advocate for Bitcoin, is also continuing to work on “a decentralized standard for social media” — and believes this has the potential to give users access to a greater number of conversations as well as more relevant content.
The cause of the Facebook outage remains unknown. But on the bright side, Crypto Twitter continues to rumble on as usual.
