IOVLabs, the startup behind the Bitcoin-powered smart contracts platform RSK, today announced the acquisition of Taringa, one of the largest social networks in Latin America.
Taringa, which launched in 2004, is something of a pioneer in the world of social networking. The company predates Facebook and Twitter and currently boasts more than 70 million monthly visitors and 17.5 million registered users. In less than a decade, the network managed to position itself as the third-most popular social network in Latin America, and the second largest in Argentina, according to data from ComScore.
With this deal, IOVLabs hopes to not only improve the quality of its platform but also to diversify its services as a result of the increase in its customer base, which the company expects to grow by millions of new users.
"Blockchain is a powerful technology, but it needs mass adoption to create meaningful value. This acquisition puts us at the forefront of adoption in distributed ledger technologies," Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar, CEO of IOVLabs, said in a statement. "We see Taringa as the first step towards massive adoption of both RSK and RIF platforms."
Prior to this deal with RSK and IOVLabs, Taringa announced a partnership with MakerDAO in early July to launch a new crypto-focused community. The social network planned to create a new project called "Taringa! Pioneros" as a strategy to establish a decentralized platform. But even as early as 2015, Taringa welcomed crypto with open arms. The company implemented a revenue distribution system in Bitcoin thanks to a partnership with Xapo.
Becoming part of RSK and IOVLabs, then, appears to be a very natural fit for Taringa. "We are very excited about joining forces with the creators of RIF and RSK, as we truly believe that our users and communities should benefit from the contributions they make to our social network," said Matías Botbol, CEO of Taringa, in a statement.
"We are already building our first tool to allow Taringa users to get rewarded by being active participants in their communities," he said.
The acquisition will now also make it possible to use RSK technology as a tool to develop new features, such as peer-to-peer exchanges and a dapp marketplace, within the Taringa platform.
The Gibraltar-based IOVLabs no doubt understands the importance of the Latin American market for the crypto industry. The company currently has offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay, in addition to its Singapore and San Francisco locations.