The payments industry heads into the new year with a major question mark hanging over its head: What does it mean that massive social network X is apparently planning to launch a payments network?

Little is known about this move yet. A New Year’s Eve post on X, formerly Twitter, by chief executive Linda Yaccarino, though brief, appears to refer to several initiatives the company plans to introduce in 2025. These include X TV and Grok, the company’s chatbot, as well as X Money. . “X will connect you in ways you never thought possible,” she says in the post. X could not be reached for comment.

Although brief, the reference to “X Money” is seen by some observers as a teaser for a service that would enable X users to send and receive payments, specifically cryptocurrency transfers. “These will definitely be some new rails for crypto,” notes Cliff Gray of Gray Consulting Ventures LLC. In fact, the goal may be to make exchanging digital currency for merchandise a “friendlier” process than before, and thus broaden the market for transactions involving Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

An account on X, called Xmoney, has apparently been live for a year and has attracted more than that. 145,000 followersaccording to his X account. According to figures compiled by Statista, X has more than 400 million users worldwide. According to the figures, its user base is expected to grow by around 3.4% in 2024.

Observations say this could make X an attractive platform for payments as well as a potential bottom line booster. “It’s another source of revenue,” noted Thad Patterson, strategic advisor at payments advisory Datos-Insights.

“It’s such a broad platform, most people have an account,” says Gray. “They can easily introduce a closed-loop solution.” It could go either way.” PayPal is an example of a large, and popular, closed-loop payments platform. Although Gray says X has the potential to challenge PayPal, it is unlikely to come to fruition. It will take a long time as the social network is still developing its transaction capabilities.

Still, rival social networks like Blue Sky have attracted many users, some of whom are former X devotees, in recent years, Gray pointed out, expanding into services like payments on the network. Urgent lending for need. That could make digital currency payments especially important for X, he says, as a means of appealing to cryptocurrency users, especially as payments platforms increasingly allow for real-time transactions. moving towards