ZUCKER-BUCKS 

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg hints at his own Bitcoin rival for 2018....

MARK Zuckerberg has hinted that Facebook could be getting its own version of Bitcoin very soon.

The Facebook founder teased his interest in so-called cryptocurrencies in a blog post that outlines his plans for 2018.

Facebook could launch its own cryptocurrency in 2018, amid growing interest in the technology

Zuckerberg explains that users are concerned that big tech companies and spying governments are crawling their Facebook habits.

He believes this could turn away users, and admits that Facebook is making "too many errors" when it comes to user trust.

One way he believes Facebook could change this is by adopting what he calls "important counter-trends...like encryption or cryptocurrency".

Zuckerberg says these technologies "take power from centralised systems and put it back into people's hands".

He adds: "I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our service.

Building hot new technologies into Facebook could also be a prime way for Zuckerberg to re-entice a younger audience onto the social media site.

Last year, a study by eMarketer confirmed Facebook's fears of a waning youth audience. It suggested that the number of Facebook users aged between 12 and 17 was set to fall by 3.5% throughout 2017.