Elon Musk envisioned X becoming the "everything app". His CEO, Linda Yaccarino, is calling it the "superapp".
The model of WeChat is being followed.
Earlier this year, the company announced the introduction of XMoney. This is in beta, undergoing testing before being rolled out to the public. The plan is to first introduce it in the United States before moving to the rest of the world.
Yaccarino is now taking it to another level by citing how the company is going to allow for investing and trading on the platform.
It is evident that deeper penetration into financial services is the plan. This is going to all be part of the transition from simply a social media application to something much larger. Of course, not to be overlooked is the fact that X.com and xAI just merged together. This provides X with one of the leading AI models.
This, naturally, brings up the idea of data.
In this article we will dive into what is taking place and the potential implications.
Source
On X: “Soon, you will be able to manage your entire financial life on the platform”
What is the goal of X? This can be summed up in this manner:
becoming a total ecosystem combining social network, payment, and financial services at the heart of a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
XMoney, which is a partnership with Visa, is already in place to handle payments. The social media aspect of the question is obvious. This leaves us with the expansion into other financial services.
Yaccarinio provided a teaser about this.
“A whole commerce ecosystem and a financial ecosystem is going to emerge on the platform that does not exist today,” she said.
“You’ll be able to come to X and be able to transact your whole financial life on the platform,” Yaccarino said in an interview with the Financial Times at the Cannes Lions advertising festival. “And that’s whether I can pay you for the pizza that we shared last night or make an investment or a trade. So that’s the future.”
The idea of bringing investing to the ecosystem makes sense. How the company achieves that end is not clear. Entering the financial realm, as the company found out, entails dealing with a different host of regulators. For XMoney, X had to get approval from all 50 states in the U.S.
Entering the securities realm will add in entities such as the SEC. Proper licensing and reporting is par for the course in this realm.
The potential, however, is evident.
X has roughly 600 million monthly active users. How many of them are stock buyers? Even garnering a fraction of the trading volume presently achieved could be a major boost to the revenues of the company.
It also enhances all other aspects of the platform as network effects are the norm.
What About Digital Assets?
Yaccarino, in her comments, did not bring up cryptocurrency. This is something that Elon Musk was often tied to. Most notably, he has a long history of talking about DOGE.
The question is whether he is serious or simply trolling. Outside of his tweets, there is no evidence of his having any connection to the original meme coin.
It is not the same for crypto.
Tesla was one of the early public companies to hold Bitcoin. A couple years back, the company acquired $1.5B in BTC. It turned around and sold off $1.25B. The remaining $250M has now grown to over $1B.
People also speculated that Musk personally and SpaceX also acquired significant holdings in Bitcoin.
Does this mean that X will incorporate crypto?
My guess is the topic was ignored due to a lack of clarity. The US Congress is now weighing legislation to regulate both stablecoins and digital assets.
I stated that my view is that X will eventually bring out a stablecoin. If it does not head down this path, others such as USDC or USDT will certainly be part of the payment system. The entire financial spectrum will be heading in this direction.
As for crypto swapping and other services, logic says that, at some point, X will get involved. Regulation will clarify the path a company needs to take. The idea of investing in securities shows the path. X will build the infrastructure for that, something that can be used for crypto when the time is right.
We have to keep in mind the probability that most securities will ultimately be tokenized. Hence, dealing in securities will mean offering digital assets tied to blockchain. What is the difference between the ETH coin and a token representing Apple stock on the Ethereum blockchain?
From a technical standpoint, they are the same thing.
X is rapidly becoming a FinTech company. This opens it up to an entirely new realm of services, including crypto-based.