Twitter buyout: What it means for the crypto industry

Last week, Elon Musk finally bought Twitter. This is a big change for the company, and potentially even a bigger one for the whole social media sector – because he is eager to innovate. From what we know, many of these innovations are likely to use blockchain and crypto in one way or another, and therefore have a considerable impact on the crypto industry as well. In fact, some cryptoassets have already started reacting to the news.

Here are some potential crypto developments that Twitter can initiate with a little help from its new friend – crypto exchange giant Binance. 

Twitter’s crypto forces

Twitter is no stranger to crypto. Last year, it implemented two features: tipping creators with Bitcoin via a Lightning Network wallet provided by Strike (only in the US), and a special type of NFT profile picture frame allowing to prove the NFT ownership. Last week, it released another one called NFT Tweet Tiles, which is a new way of displaying URLs that lead to NFTs on marketplaces, making it easier to buy, sell and display them.

However, innovation is a brain-heavy endeavour, and the existing team may not be enough to fuel its new boss’ ambitions.

This is where an important partnership comes in: Binance helped Elon to close the $44 billion deal with some $500 million, and promised to contribute its teams to develop blockchain solutions for the platform. Binance CEO CZ said the company would “play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology”.  

CZ’s wording was large enough to describe a myriad of use cases, but it is likely that new crypto developments would go in the directions of a crypto wallet, fighting bots, NFT integrations and some use of Doge.

Crypto wallet

Elon Musk has often shared his vision of X, or an “everything app” which would combine social media, messenger, taxi hailing, online shopping, video conferencing… in other words, whatever a user might need, somewhat like the Chinese WeChat.

Payment service would be the backbone of such app, and Twitter embedding a crypto wallet would open doors to numerous commercial possibilities: content monetization, selling goods and services through Twitter, developing in-app games and many more.

Such wallet may already be in the making: Jane Manchung Wong, a Silicon Valley insider, has shared the news about Twitter “working on a wallet prototype that supports crypto deposits and withdrawals”. Binance, which has itself developed a number of custodial and non-custodial wallets, could surely help with that.

Fighting bots

Twitter bots have almost cost the company a deal (or so Elon Musk implies) and fighting them is one of the new boss’ priorities.

In this he will be assisted by Binance. Its spokesperson has already confirmed that the company is creating an internal team that will “focus on ways that blockchain and crypto could be helpful to Twitter”, including on-chain solutions to address the bots’ proliferation. 

NFTs

Twitter is home to a vibrant crypto community, but many NFT projects prefer using Discord to be able to discuss and take decisions among holders. Embedding a wallet can allow users to access private communities with their NFTs, and taking into account how complicated Discord is, a simpler NFT community management on Twitter can hit the mark.

Further NFT integrations into different parts of Twitter are also highly likely, making the platform ready for the future NFT economy. 

Doge

Elon Musk’s support of Dogecoin, a Litecoin’s fork, has earned him the surname of “Dogefather”.

Created in 2013 as a joke, the memecoin featuring a shiba inu dog has managed to thrive against all expectations and develop its own community. Last year, Elon Musk has joined it with a flow of memes and deliberations about the coin’s potential, which has delighted Doge community and sent $DOGE to unexpected highs.

Even if the biggest real gesture that Elon has ever done to Dogecoin was accepting it as payment for Tesla merch (not Tesla cars), the community is still looking up to him as their spiritual leader and expects him to involve the coin in Twitter’s crypto makeover.

Crypto market’s reaction

Since the acquisition news broke out, $DOGE has gained 120%, the community hoping for some Doge-friendly gesture from the Dogefather.

Binance’s BNB coin has gained 16%, markets counting on CZ to exploit his new partnership with Twitter to the maximum.

All in all, Twitter acquisition may prove to be a very good thing for crypto.

Written by D.Center