There seems little to trust here. So when Facebook swears that its Libra cryptocurrency won’t be used to target ads and to definitely, absolutely keep your privacy intact — caveat emptor.

Guess who Facebook is going after with this latest project? Poor people in failed states who have no access to traditional forms of banking, let alone wealth building. Surely the impetus here is humanitarian.

As to what institutions are going to back Facebook’s currency — which was created in secret, and which will eventually exist in the physical world as an alternative to US currency, accessed through its own ATMs — that remains unclear.