Facebook forms a new blockchain group, headed by Coinbase board member

Stephen Lam | Reuters

David Marcus, vice president of Messaging Products at Facebook, speaks on stage during the annual Facebook F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, April 18, 2017.

David Marcus, Facebook’s head of Messenger, is going to head up a new group focused on the blockchain technology that underlies bitcoin.

“I’m setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage Blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch,” Marcus said in a post Tuesday afternoon on the social media site. Marcus joined the board of Coinbase, the leading U.S. marketplace for buying and selling cryptocurrencies, in December.

The news came as Facebook implemented its biggest executive shakeup in 15 years, Recode reported Tuesday. The company confirmed the report.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in early January that the company will begin looking into cryptocurrencies and “how to best use them in our services.”

Blockchain technology quickly creates a permanent, secure record of transactions between two parties and eliminates the need for a third-party intermediary, such as a bank. Bitcoin is the first application of the technology.