Cryptocurrency

Facebook had to invent a totally new programming language, Move, for its Libra cryptocurrency project because no other language was up to the task

FILE PHOTO: Representations of virtual currency are displayed in front of the Libra logo in this illustration picture, June 21, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Representations of virtual currency and Libra logo illustration picture Reuters
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Last week, Facebook announced a brand new cryptocurrency of its own called Libra — an initiative that has already drawn the attention of Silicon Valley, government officials, and even astrologists

Less noticed was the fact that Facebook also launched a new programming language to use with Libra, called Move. This language is specifically designed for blockchain transactions, and for developers to build apps that work with Libra. It's still in its early stages, but the idea is that the Move programming language allows apps to move Libra coins from one account to another without being misplaced or duplicated.

"One of the things that's powerful about Move is it's very expressive," Ben Maurer, tech lead for the Libra-focused Facebook subsidiary Calibra, told Business Insider. "Move can express things ranging from simple transactions like sending money to more complex transactions like how money is created and destroyed."

Subscribe to read: Facebook had to invent a totally new programming language, Move, for its Libra cryptocurrency project because no other language was up to the task

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Rosalie Chan
Rosalie Chan is a senior editor for Business Insider's tech team. Previously, she covered cloud computing and enterprise tech, reporting on companies like Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Intel, Alibaba Cloud, Atlassian, GitHub, VMware, Broadcom, and more. She has written extensively on topics including cloud computing, developer companies, open source, and sexism and sexual harassment in the tech industry. She has received the San Francisco Press Club award for continuing coverage for her reporting on sexism and sexual harassment in Silicon Slopes and the Excellence in Business / Consumer / Tech Reporting award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her investigation into the coding boot camp Holberton School. Most recently, she was an editor on the Business Insider investigative package, The True Cost of Data Centers, which received a George Polk Award and an honorable mention from SABEW.Rosalie joined Business Insider after working as a software engineer and freelance journalist. She studied journalism, computer science, and technology and business law at Northwestern University. Her work has previously appeared in TIME, the Huffington Post, VICE, Pacific Standard, Inverse, Chicago magazine, the Chicago Reporter, and more. She's based in San Francisco.