WhatsApp, the messaging service owned by Meta Platforms Inc., will soon allow users in Brazil to make payments to businesses through the app. “The Central Bank just authorized the launch of our new payment feature so people will be able to pay small businesses right on WhatsApp,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted Thursday on Instagram. “Excited to roll this out soon.” Regulators had previously halted the feature. Zuckerberg has said that WhatsApp payments could be a big business for Meta,...

Ethan Miller / Getty Facebook is reversing its ban on cryptocurrency advertisements and will now allow some preapproved advertisers to promote crypto businesses and services, like exchanges. Facebook banned all crypto ads on the service back in January, around the height of the bitcoin price surge, to prevent people from promoting “financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.” Now, advertisers that are approved by Facebook through...

Justin Sullivan / Getty What is the blockchain? And how should Facebook be using it? Finding answers to those questions is now the responsibility of David Marcus, the Facebook executive who has, until this week, been running the company’s standalone messaging app, Messenger. Marcus is leaving Messenger to take over a new internal team dedicated to exploring blockchain technology, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The team will be small at launch, fewer than a dozen...

Facebook / Mark Zuckerberg Facebook instituted its biggest executive shakeup in its 15-year history this week, appointing new leaders for WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook’s core app while giving other longtime Facebook executives new responsibilities, including a new effort to tackle blockchain technology. The moves, which were announced internally to employees today, are meant to improve executive communication and user privacy, but the changes also come as Facebook contends with the...