Facebook Gains, Beating Peers, After Crypto, Advertising Reports

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. gained as much as 2.5%, making it one of the few tech names moving higher in early Friday trading, after reports that it’s making progress toward its cryptocurrency ambitions.

A group of payments and other companies, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber, agreed to invest about $10 million each in a consortium to oversee the digital coin Facebook plans to unveil next week, the Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday. The social-media giant has also hired a U.K. bank lobbyist as its director of public policy in London, the Financial Times said.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal also reported Facebook plans to step up its marketing spending in a shift in its consumer-facing advertising strategy.

Facebook shares climbed as much as 2.5% to $181.84 at 9:35 a.m. in New York. It was the best-performing stock in the Nasdaq 100 Index, which fell 0.7% as concerns over semiconductor demand weighed on the benchmark.

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