X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, will enable in-app trading of stocks and cryptocurrencies within the next few weeks.
Head of product Nikita Bier announced the news on Saturday. The new feature, called “Smart Cashtags”, is a significant step in owner Elon Musk’s efforts to turn the platform into a financial services hub. “Over the next few weeks we’re launching a set of features, including Smart Cashtags, which let you trade stocks and crypto directly from your timeline,” Bier wrote in a post on X.
How Smart Cashtags work
The new feature lets users tap ticker symbols in posts to access real-time price data, interactive charts and every mention of that asset across the platform.
Preview images shared by Bier show buy and sell buttons next to some assets; however, X has not yet given details on how transactions will be processed. The system will use X’s API to provide near-real-time data on any asset registered on-chain, including small-cap crypto tokens available on decentralised platforms but not listed on major exchanges.
X’s existing partnership with eToro for the Cashtag feature — which already provides data and charts from TradingView — is expected to support the new trading capabilities. Bier described the launch as part of an effort to support crypto without encouraging behaviour that harms the user experience. “I honestly want crypto to thrive on X, but apps that incentivise spam, raids or harassing random users are not the answer,” he wrote.
Part of a broader financial services strategy
The Smart Cashtags announcement came after Elon Musk confirmed on 11 February that the platform’s digital payments service, X Money, will enter a limited public beta within the next one to two months.
The service is currently running as a closed internal beta among employees. “The goal is for this to become the place where all the money is held and the central source of all financial transactions,” Musk said during an internal xAI meeting. X has so far obtained money-transmitter licences in more than 40 US states and partnered with Visa to offer peer-to-peer payments via Visa Direct.
The platform has around 700 million active users worldwide. These initiatives serve Musk’s long-standing goal of building an “everything app” similar to China’s WeChat — a platform that combines social networking, messaging and financial services in one place.
