Crypto trading headed to X as Musk builds ‘everything app’

Crypto trading will be available on X in the next couple of weeks, the app’s head of product has said, years after owner Elon Musk spoke about making the platform an “everything app.”

Writing on the platform Saturday, X’s Nikita Bier said that the feature will work via Smart Cashtags — a new function announced in January giving users live pricing information for crypto and stocks.

“We are launching a number of features in a couple weeks, including Smart Cashtags that will enable you to trade stocks and crypto directly from timeline,” wrote Bier.

Bier announced Smart Cashtags last month though did not reveal that the feature would also allow X users to buy and sell assets.

The latest announcement comes as Musk prepares to launch X Money, the payments arm of the social media platform. Musk has talked about bringing crypto and payments to X — formerly Twitter — since he bought the platform in 2022.

Open claw bots

Bier’s announcement came during a debate about spam and claiming fees on X.

Responding to a comment from someone saying OpenClaw developer Peter Steinberger could claim “at least $100k in fees” from people creating tokens, Bier said that X would soon ban apps creating fee pools for non-consenting users.

OpenClaw is an AI agent app. Its creator Steinberger has bemoaned being harassed by people urging him to interact with their tokens and — sometimes scammy — crypto projects inspired by his app.

“We intend to update our API policies to block apps that create fee pools for non-consenting users,” wrote Bier.

‘All the money’

Elon Musk has previously said that he wants X to rival China’s WeChat — a platform where people can get information on everything, make payments, and generally just organise their lives.

Back in 2023, Musk obtained money transmitting licenses in the US for X. A fan of memecoin Dogecoin, there has even been speculation in the past that Musk would integrate the ninth biggest cryptocurrency for transactions on the platform.

But Musk wants X to be where people do all their monetary transactions.

At a presentation this week, Musk said of X Money: “This is really intended to be the place where all the money is.

“The central source of all monetary transactions. It’s really going to be a game-changer.”

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.