Facebook is reportedly preparing to launch its own version of Bitcoin, for use in its messaging applications, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. Could this “Facecoin” be the long-awaited breakthrough by a global technology giant into the lucrative market for retail financial services? Or will it be yet another exaggerated “crypto” project, buying into the continuing excitement about decentralised peer-to-peer exchange but, in the end, not delivering very much? Time will tell, but my two decades of research into the economics of payments makes me sceptical.