X users will one day be able to use the platform to send money to other users, purchase goods from stores, and even earn interest on the money in their accounts as one would do with a bank account, says the head of payments at X.
In an April 22 post, X payments chief information security officer Christopher Stanley said the payment capabilities of X would go beyond “just tipping” and expand to include an in-app wallet capable of storing and sending money to any other X users.
“Think Venmo at first. Then, as things evolve, you can gain interest, buy products, eventually use it to buy things in stores (think Apple Pay),” said Stanley.
Stanley added that the “end goal” of payments on X was to create a fully functioning financial ecosystem where users never have to withdraw funds to conduct any typical transactions.
“The end goal is if you ever have any incentive to take money out of our system, then we have failed, you shouldn’t ever need to take money out because you should be able to do anything you need on our platform.”
Stanley’s comments come just three days after X secured a money transmitter license in the state of Tenessee on April 19. With the latest license secured, X has now received money-transmitting licenses in a total of 25 states in the United States, according to the Nationwide Multi-State Licensing System (NMLS).
On Dec. 21 last year, X’s executive chairman Elon Musk told ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood that he plans to launch in-app payment services on X midway through 2024.
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At the time he said he’d hoped to launch financial services on the app sooner but had been “weighed down” by bureaucratic processes.
Several commentators have shared that X’s upcoming payments feature will initially only offer support for fiat currencies, however, Musk has reportedly instructed developers at X to build the platform’s payments system in such a way that crypto functionality can be added in the future.
Despite Musk showing a high level of enthusiasm for cryptocurrency in the past, with Tesla still holding 9,720 Bitcoin (BTC) on its books and Dogecoin (DOGE) being an accepted currency in the electric car company’s merchandise store, Musk has splashed cold water on any hopes of crypto integration on X.
In December, he told Wood that he spends “hardly any time” thinking about cryptocurrency. Since then he has not made any statements confirming that crypto would be used for X payments.
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