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Breaking: Musk is about to launch cryptocurrency payments for Twitter?

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Twitter has begun applying for regulatory permission in US states to push ahead with payments

Breaking: Is Musk about to Launch Cryptocurrency Payments on Twitter?

原文来源：阿法兔研究笔记

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Musk and Twitter Pay.

According to the FT, Musk's company has already begun applying for state licenses in the US, hoping to generate new revenue beyond advertising,Musk has previously said he wants Twitter and integrated financial technology services, such as peer-to-peer transactions, savings accounts and debit cards.

Of course, Twitter is also pushing ahead with the regulatory checks needed before it can exit the payments service.In November, Twitter registered as a payment processor with the U.S. Treasury Department and hopes to complete the U.S. license within a year, after which the company will seek to expand to gain international regulatory approval, according to the filing.

Twitter formed a subsidiary, Twitter Payments LLC, last August

What's the problem?

The main reason is that Twitter's revenues are not growingAs a result, Twitter has begun applying for regulatory licenses across the US and designing the software needed to introduce payments on the social media platform.

At the time of the acquisition last year, Twitter had raised $4.4 billion in about 19 rounds (early, Pre-IPO and post-IPO); The listing has accumulated a loss of $861 million (excluding pre-IPO losses). Only 14 of the 33 earnings calls mentioned profits. Another is that Twitter has no clear business model, so it still relies on advertising, but too many ads can cause a lot of problems with the experience of a messaging platform.

Esther Crawford, currently Mr Musk's trusted right-hand man at Twitter, has started leading a small team,Building the infrastructure that Twitter needs to integrate payments technology.

The new initiative, which combines financial payments, is an important part of Mr Musk's plan to open up new revenue streams. Twitter's $5 billion-a-year advertising business has been struggling since Musk bought it for $44 billion last October,Of course, this new initiative could also mean that Musk's previous push for Twitter Blue didn't work strategically.

Late last year and early this year, Twitter cracked down on a lot of third-party add-ons, and companies like Tweetbot and Twitterific were in trouble. There has been speculation that Twitter has deliberately shut off access to the apps, largely because they do not help drive advertising revenue. It's also a hassle for users who are used to Twitter plug-ins and software, so Twitter's relationship with third-party developers is already rocky.

Shutting down third-party clients makes perfect sense in a purely commercial sense. But Twitter hasn't done that since 2012, and Musk has insisted that the AD model work. That makes it very difficult for 16-year-old companies like Twitterrific to operate.

接下来，马斯克希望推特能够提供金融技术服务，如点对点交易(Think carefully what is this?)Savings accounts and debit cards as part of a master plan that includes messaging, payments and commerce.

Of course, it's worth noting that Musk has entrepreneurial experience in the payments space.In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, one of the first online banks that later became part of payments giant Paypal.

But Musk's vision may go beyond that. He wants Twitter to be a super App.Super App/Everthing App, including exploration:

1. Let users reward creators directly.

2. Let users buy items directly through the platform.

3. Users can pay each other directly.

Musk wants the system to be legal tender first, but, insiders say, it's also possible to add cryptocurrency capabilities later.

In an early bid for Twitter presented to investors in May last year, Musk said he aimed for Twitter to generate about $1.3 billion in payments by 2028.

Of course, hundreds of thousands of Twitter users share links to third-party payment options in their tweets or accounts, according to data from payments firm FXC Intelligence,That said, Twitter itself is already a platform where a lot of payment scenarios take place.