Facebook’s new cryptocurrency gets big backers

Facebook Inc. FB 1.39% has signed up more than a dozen companies including Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., MA -1.00% PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL 1.07% and Uber Technologies Inc. UBER 5.07% to back a new cryptocurrency it plans to unveil next week and launch next year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The financial and e-commerce companies, venture capitalists and telecommunications firms will invest around $10 million each in a consortium that will govern the digital coin, called Libra, according to people familiar with the matter.

In the works for more than a year, the secretive project revolves around a digital coin that its users could send to each other and use to make purchases both on Facebook and across the internet.

Talks with some of the partners are ongoing, and the group’s eventual membership may change, the people added.