Twitter CEO Dumps Facebook Libra, Invests In Startup CoinList

Jack Dorsey is a verified supporter of cryptocurrencies, and a huge advocate of Bitcoin -- but not Libra.

The Twitter CEO has recently joined the investors of CoinList, a nascent platform for conducting token sales, the Wall Street Journal reported. The latest funding round raised $10 million for the San Fransisco-based startup that upped their total funding amount to $19.2 million, based on Crunchbase data.

Token sales have somewhat lost the enthusiasm it had a year ago with only 495 Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) in June compared to 3,782 ICOs in all of 2018, according to Fundera. How the new funds could help CoinList's business remains to be seen, as the company plans to integrate trading and a crypto wallet on top of its existing services.

"Crypto needs a trustworthy platform for launching new projects," Dorsey said in a statement for the Journal. "CoinList leads the industry in that role, and trading is a logical next step."

Dorsey's fellow social media CEO Mark Zuckerberg is publicly known to have a different take on cryptocurrencies, and that is to create a new one and put Facebook's print all over it. This approach is met with regulatory hurdles and public scrutiny, all, in large part, due to the existing controversies and issues surrounding Facebook.

Dorsey, however, is fine with the current crypto ecosystem, and his investment in CoinList proves it. He also initiated Square Crypto with his other company, Square Inc., last year, and its focus is on Bitcoin. But on joining Libra, Dorsey said, "Hell no."

"The creation of [bitcoin] was very pure, and focused on a public good, rather than any other particular agenda," Dorsey told Quartz in June. "The fact that it's meant to be deflationary, meant to incentivize savings instead of spending, I think is a net positive for the world and how we think about consuming. Because it is a scarce resource, it has a probability of always increasing in value, which makes you consider a lot more how you spend it."

Political Ads

Cryptocurrency is not the only subject the two social media heads have clashing ideologies, but political ads too. Dorsey has banned all political advertising on Twitter on Wednesday, while Zuckerberg maintains them on Facebook regardless of its authenticity.