I'm kind of sour on Facebook, so I'm not going to have much of an objective opinion here.

Even so, I can see where a Facebook acquisition of Coinbase could more greatly legitimize the cryptocurrency markets for one segment of society—the one which doesn't really care about decentralization (probably doesn't even know what it is) or about privacy (after all, they're doing nothing wrong but posting pictures of their latest adventures for their family and friends).

Those folks, the largely unplugged and thus uninformed will then wonder what crypto is all about and potentially go looking for it.

Those of us who made it to Steemit, at least in part, because of the decentralization and the belief that our data won't be sold to third parties (though I'm not clear what will prevent someone from doing it, or for that matter, any entity coming in and just getting it), aren't going to be happy even with the rumor, let alone the actual acquisition taking place.

So, the question becomes, what do we want more: potential big money, or decentralization with organic, but slow, growth. I wish we could have both, but history isn't very much in favor of that. :)