Elon Musk said late Tuesday that payment features for social app X will be launched next month.
The feature, called X Money, turns X into a fintech app that offers peer-to-peer transfers, bank deposits, debit cards, and cashback services.
The platform is licensed in more than 40 U.S. states through subsidiary X Payments and has Visa as an account funding partner.
Despite having zero citations for the cryptocurrency, Dogecoin jumped as much as 8% following the announcement before reversing its gains. It touched nearly $0.10 over the past day before settling around $0.093, making it the best-performing major cryptocurrency over the 24 hours and seven days.
The reflexive move reflects a pattern that has played out many times since 2021. Musk talked about X payments, and DOGE speculated he would integrate it.
Musk calls Dogecoin his “favorite cryptocurrency” and Tesla will accept DOGE as a commodity in 2022. But X Money as described is a purely fiat product, with peer-to-peer transfers, bank linking, and debit card functionality. This is closer to Venmo with a social media app than a crypto wallet.
As a result, X’s head of product Nikita Bier said in February that cryptocurrency trading tools would come to X via Smart Cashtags, but clarified that the platform would not execute trades or act as a brokerage.
It will provide data and links to redirect users to the exchange. Musk recently retweeted third-party predictions for X Money’s future features, including “cryptocurrency integration,” but the company has yet to confirm anything.
The more interesting question for the crypto market is not whether DOGE is added. That’s a 6% yield.
The six percent share of balances within social media apps used by hundreds of millions of people is higher than nearly all U.S. savings accounts and competitive with money market funds. Whether it is subsidized by
The timing comes as Congress debates the Clarity Act, which would create rules for yield-generating stablecoin products.
The Senate Banking Committee is targeting mid-to-late March for a price increase. The core policy question is whether non-bank platforms should be allowed to offer deposit-like benefits to consumers.
X Money is not a stablecoin product, but it targets the exact same consumer need, namely people looking for better returns than what banks can offer via a different regulatory path.
If X Money launched at 6% APY before the CLARITY Act was passed, it would create an awkward comparison. Fiat fintech products within social media applications can provide benefits that are prohibited by legislation from crypto stablecoin products.
