Did Elon Musk Buy His Way Into Twitter For Its Crypto Project?

Elon Musk bought 9.2% of Twitter after advocating for freedom of speech and open social platforms, but what about Twitter’s crypto plans?

Elon Musk just bought 9.2% of Twitter and became the largest shareholder in the process, but did the company’s crypto project influence his decision? Days before Musk bought his way into Twitter, he had expressed interest in building a social media company, opened a poll asking whether Twitter’s algorithm should be open-sourced, and advocated for a more open and democratic social media. While a self-declared ‘free speech absolutist,’Musk has many interests and passions.

It is no secret that Musk is fascinated by and supports the crypto world. Today Musk is known for his work on SpaceX and Tesla, but some of the funds used to create these two successful companies actually came from the saleof PayPal, the instant-digital-payment company he helped create. The decentralized digital financial movement helped shape Musk into the person the world knows today, and Musk has never lost track of the digital financial revolution since, or the rise of crypto.

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As reported by Wired, Twitter is shifting the way it does business, moving away from ad-generated revenue and into the crypto and NFT world as part of its diversification of revenue strategy. According to the report, Twitter has a solid crypto future in full development. Twitter Crypto, a unit within the social media giant, works to massify crypto and digital assets. While digital wallets and online crypto trading sites face the challenge of attracting millions of users, Twitter already has plenty, 396.5 million of them. Now the company is developing crypto technology and moving fast intoa trend which Musk publicly supports.


Bringing Crypto To The Masses


Image via Twitter NFT

The Twitter Crypto team was hired in November 2021and a feature that allowed users to crypto-tip on the platformby receiving Bitcoin through Lightning was released a short time before. The team also added a feature that allowed users to upload verified NFTsas their profile pictures. Twitter users were already uploading NFTs and finding ways to move crypto, but the Twitter Crypto team made them official on the platform, and they say this is just the beginning.

Product manager Esther Crawford of the Twitter Crypto team told Wired that Twitter is on a revenue diversification journey. In other words, looking for new ways to make money. While Twitter mainly brings in cash through ad-based businesses, the company is already making a profit from NFTs and crypto features. For example, Twitter Blue allows users to access additional NFT benefits for $2.99 per month. Project lead, Tess Rinearson, also on the Twitter Crypto team, told Wired that the company is exploring a Twittercoin but has no roadmap yet.


Open-source algorithms, a decentralized economy, freedom of speech, and freedom to create in a free market, are core ideas of the NFT-crypto global movement, and the team believes Twitter is the perfect platform to bring crypto to the masses. Elon Musk, who is highly revered in variousTwitter communities, shares those same values. Just how much the Twitter crypto future motivated Musk to buy $2.9 billion in Twitter stock is perhaps something no one will ever know, although it is highly unlikely that Musk was unaware of Twitter’s crypto plans before buying in.

Next:U.S. Digital Currency Takes A Step Forward, Heres What It Could Look Like


Source: Wired

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