Bitcoin—along with other major cryptocurrencies ethereum, XRP
XRP
The bitcoin price is up around 350% since crashing to recent lows of $15,000 per bitcoin, pulling the ethereum, XRP, dogecoin and wider crypto market back to $2.5 trillion as the market braces for another earthquake.
Now, after Tesla billionaire Elon Musk made a dramatic return to the front lines of crypto last month, an executive at Musk’s social media company X has revealed the platform’s payments “end goal” that could play havoc with the bitcoin price and wider crypto market.
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Tesla billionaire Elon Musk made a dramatic return to the front lines of crypto last month, teasing … [+]
“The end goal is if you ever have any incentive to take money out of our system, then we have failed, you shouldn’t ever need to take money out because you should be able to do anything you need on our platform,” X payments chief information security officer Christopher Stanley posted in response to speculation the company’s money-transmitter licenses will allow it to facilitate U.S. dollar and crypto payments on the platform.
“Think Venmo at first,” Stanley added. “Then, as things evolve, you can gain interest, buy products, eventually use it to buy things in stores (think Apple Pay).”
X, the micro-blogging site formerly known as Twitter that Musk bought in 2022 and is trying to grow into an “everything app” similar to the China-based Wechat, has now acquired money-transmitting licenses in 25 U.S. states.
Last month, Musk teased the possibility of buying Tesla cars with his favorite meme-based bitcoin rival dogecoin—declaring “dogecoin to the moon.”
Since Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it X, there has been widespread speculation that he could add support for bitcoin, dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies such as ethereum and XRP in a similar way PayPal
PayPal
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The dogecoin price has crashed back from its 2021 peak but remains far above where it was before … [+]
PayPal, which Musk was among an influential group of founders, has leaned into bitcoin and crypto over the last few years, launching its own dollar-pegged stablecoin cryptocurrency after rolling out support for bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and bitcoin cash in late 2020. PayPal’s original support for bitcoin and crypto helped kick off the 2021 bitcoin price bull run that catapulted bitcoin to almost $70,000.
In October, a leaked “all-hands” virtual meeting at X revealed Musk’s plans to grow X’s financial services arm, with prominent voices in the bitcoin and crypto space calling the plan something that could spur a “critical mass” of crypto adoption.
“If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever,” Musk said at the time.
Musk, who has previously said he wants to turn X into an “updated version” of PayPal, has helped the price of bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, including the meme-based dogecoin, surge over the last few years as he teases crypto integration and adoption.