X advisor Nikita Bier, who previously served as product lead at the company, announced that a feature to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on the platform will come “in the near future”. The feature, in the form of a button, will allow users to buy and sell from posts—positioned as a successor to the smart cash tag system Bier created. The previous system allowed viewers of a post—say viewing a post that mentions a cryptocurrency—to immediately access price charts, news, and discussions about the mentioned cryptocurrency. This served as an innovative way to stay informed on the latest scoop in the financial landscape surrounding virtual assets; it adds a further layer of democratization of data and knowledge. Where previous research had to be done manually, X was one of the pioneering social media platforms that enabled instant access.
Now, with the looming advent of the buy-and-sell feature, X will be furthering the drive towards reducing the hurdles of crypto exchanges. This will be paired with the smart cash tag system, and thus, users will theoretically be able to make informed decisions in a quicker time frame, beating the system of old.
Concerns around the feature are, however, present. Since the button will exist on a social media platform, the ‘informed decisions’ could be driven or swayed, even, by posts made by crypto influencers that are prevalent on the platform. And since the buy-and-sell feature promises the same speed of decision-making that the smart cash tag system has shown, there is the possibility of users executing based on impulse. This is the risk of democratization.
As cryptocurrency is becoming more of a democratized tool—with the evolving nature of easier access, lower hurdles, and more platforms to trade—, this casts a net that attracts a wider audience; one that requires less knowledge, less screening, less assessment for risk appetite. Nevertheless, democratization can only prove to provide people with what they want: participation.
This extended to Robinhood. It is not a crypto-native platform, yet with its introduction of trading tokens; millions of registered users began trading. When it went live, the price of Ethereum temporarily spiked, and the number of participants grew ever larger. Once exposed to ease-of-access, day traders have made crypto a part of their portfolio that was historically dominated by stocks or bonds.
X now plans the same philosophy of participation. X, through its button, will be enabling users the free will to execute trades from the comfort of a few taps.
