According to reports from The Verge, Elon Musk told employees at X (formerly known as Twitter) that:
“When I talk about payment features, I really mean someone’s entire financial life. If it involves money, it will be available on our platform. Money, securities, or anything else. So it’s not like I’m sending you $20. I’m talking about you not needing a bank account.”
Since the early days of acquiring the social media platform X, Elon Musk has expressed his ambition to turn X into a super-app that goes beyond the functions of existing social media platforms. According to The Verge’s report, these newly revealed payment features on X are expected to be implemented by the end of 2024.
With this newly revealed plan, X aims to become something even larger than the former PayPal. In a recent meeting, as reported by The Verge, Elon Musk admitted that PayPal was “far from perfect” compared to its initial expectations when it was founded. When X also becomes a place for storing/trading finances, who will be the immediate beneficiaries?
Could it be DOGE holders? Many DOGE investors continue to hope that DOGE will be one of the cryptocurrencies prioritized for use as a means of payment on X. However, this has never been directly confirmed by Elon Musk, only hinted at in positive tweets.
Will X create its own X coin? This possibility has been rumored by many but has been debunked by Elon Musk’s short and clear answer: “No!” Therefore, the X social media platform will not issue any new coins or tokens.
Could it be PayPal USD (PYUSD)? This is a reasonable prediction. Legally, X.com was initially a company founded by Elon Musk in 1999 for online payments. Later, X.com became PayPal, and Elon Musk has been using this domain instead of Twitter.com. This year, PayPal has issued the PYUSD stablecoin as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum platform, with a mission to bridge the gap between Fiat and Web3 for consumers, merchants, and developers.
To ensure that the payment process is less volatile and value storage is stable, stablecoins are a top choice. Therefore, it is highly likely that PYUSD is a pre-prepared piece in the puzzle that Elon Musk wants to paint for the X social media platform.
Up until now, X reports having approximately 245 million daily users, a decrease of 15 million compared to November of the previous year. The number of users on X’s mobile app has decreased by 16% compared to October of the previous year. The number of employees has also decreased from 2,000 to 1,500. Ad revenue on the platform has also decreased significantly by 50%.
However, there is data showing that the X app’s downloads have surged in 2023, with over 60 million downloads per quarter since Elon Musk took over. In Vietnam, nearly every cryptocurrency investor has an X account. Anyone interested in the global political and economic situation uses X, as many analysts and politicians frequently use the platform.
X’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, remains optimistic despite these reports and predicts that X may become profitable early next year.