Are Elon Musk’s crypto plans for Twitter changing? – Decrypt

Many in the world of crypto rejoices when Elon Musk took over Twitter last week, as the Dogecoin Tweets and leaked fanatical texts indicated deeper integration of blockchain within the social media platform. DOGE even the price has doubled in the days that followed. But crypto may not be as high a priority for Musk’s Twitter as some had hoped, based on new reports.

On October 24, just before Musk acquired Twitter, the tech leaker noted Jane Manchun Wong tweeted that the company was working on a “prototype wallet” that would support cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals. Wong is well known for sharing trustworthy leaks from Twitter and other technology platforms that have often been proven correct.

However, on Thursday evening, technology journalist Casey Newton of Platform reported that plans had changed under Musk’s leadership. Newton wrote that “a recently revealed plan to build a crypto wallet for Twitter seems to be on hiatus.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decrypt. The price of the DOGE Suddenly falls following last night’s report – around 10% in the space of a few hours – but has mostly recovered since. At the current price of $0.128, it is up another 115% in the last 14 days.

DOGE had rallied not just because of Musk’s long-standing shared love of the main meme piece, although tweets from the self-proclaimed “Dogefather” often had a clear impact on the market price.

He also had teased intentions to integrate Dogecoin as a payment option on Twitter, similar to how Musk’s Tesla and The Boring Company accept DOGE payments in a certain way. In a leaked transcript of a Q&A with Twitter employees in June, Musk added pointed to crypto payments as a key axis to come.

Elon Musk had also flirted with ways to create a blockchain-based social media platform to replace Twitter, like revealed by leaked texts with his brother Kimbal. Twitter’s current CEO proposed a platform in April that required tiny DOGE payments to get published, but then flip-flopped a few days later and said “Twitter blockchain is not possible.”

Meanwhile, leaked texts between Musk and the co-founder of Twitter and former CEO Jack Dorsey-a rated Bitcoin maximalist and co-founder and current CEO of Block (formerly Square, Inc.) – revealed that Dorsey pushed Musk to turn Twitter into a decentralized protocol. Musk seemed receptive to Dorsey’s suggestions.

Twitter Changes

If Musk really wants to integrate crypto payments into Twitter, then a wallet would be at the heart of this initiative. But if that plan is truly “on hold” for now, deeper crypto integration into Twitter might not be on the short-term roadmap after all.

The news comes at a time of dramatic change for Twitter following the Musk purchase. Not only were the company’s top executives quickly ousted, but Twitter began what appears to be widespread layoffs on Thursday night, with reports that Musk plans to eliminate about half of the company’s 7,500 employees.

Twitter has also been buzzing this week with talk of The Musk Plan to make account verification widely available via a monthly subscription through a revamped Twitter Blue subscription. The new plan would go into effect on Monday, November 7 and cost users $8 per month.

Currently, users who meet certain criteria, including public figures, journalists, and government officials, can be verified for free. However, most of these users would lose their verification (and the associated blue tick) within 90 days of the launch of the new model. The proposed plan has generated significant backlash and controversy from users.

Whether Musk’s Twitter is making crypto a priority remains to be seen, but at least one of the main backers behind the deal is pushing for it. Crypto exchange Binance staked $500 million in the $44 billion purchase, hoping to help Twitter adopt Web3. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said pushed its Binance Pay platform as an option for Twitter payments.

And if Twitter ultimately doesn’t go that route — or doesn’t soon — then perhaps Musk’s more crypto-focused supporters will switch to one of the many decentralized, crypto-enabled networks. social media platforms on the rise lately.