Tesla’s CEO and billionaire, Elon Musk, has now acquired the popular social media app, Twitter. The acquisition comes after the tech billionaire had earlier declined an offer to become a board member of Twitter.
Over the course of time, Twitter has become a hub for crypto users, enabling the growth of various crypto-related projects. The recent $44 billion acquisition is aimed at achieving a number of goals that should improve the app and possibly affect the crypto industry both in the short-term or long-term.
What effect will this acquisition have on cryptocurrencies?
Five Ways Elon Musk’s Twitter Could Affect the Crypto Industry
- Elimination of Crypto Spam Bots
While making his offer to buy Twitter, Musk said he would eliminate the spam bots. Spam bots have greatly filled the social media app. Any crypto Twitter user will see candidly well that these automated systems have flooded the social app.
A major disadvantage these spam bots place is that unsuspecting investors have fallen victim to scams from bots and impersonators and lost their investments.
Although Twitter might have some way of curbing the spread of these bots, Musk sets out to eradicate them. We will have to wait and see exactly how.
- Will Twitter Integrate Dogecoin?
Dogecoin, a meme-inspired cryptocurrency, was created as a joke earlier in 2013. This memecoin has gained value as Musk backs the token.
Within the last 24 hours, Dogecoin had seen about 20% increase in price, with a huge 78% increase in volume trade. It is likely this increase is as a result of traders speculating that Twitter will integrate the memecoin in some way.
Over time, Musk has proven to be an ardent supporter of this memecoin. He has shown this in the way he adopted the token as a means of payment for services in his companies.
Last December, the tech billionaire revealed that his electric manufacturing company, Tesla Inc., will start accepting Dogecoin as a medium of exchange. Earlier last year, Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), another company owned by Musk, announced that it plans to take Dogecoin to the moon through a project tagged “DOGE-1” in 2022.
Since the two companies under Musk’s watch have adopted Dogecoin, is it possible that he could integrate Dogecoin into Twitter as well? Only time will tell.
- Will Twitter Finally Join the Bandwagon of Bitcoin Holders?
According to statistics, Tesla currently seats as the second largest bitcoin holding company, after MicroStrategy Inc. At the time of writing, Tesla holds 48,000 bitcoin.
As the new CEO of Twitter, the crypto billionaire could easily get Twitter to join the bandwagon of bitcoin holders over time. He has an excellent relationship with former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, himself a vocal Bitcoin supporter.
- Adjust Twitter Integration for Ethereum NFTs
Since last year, Twitter has been gradually adopting Ethereum-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Former CEO Jack Dorsey had earlier sold his first tweet as an NFT. Following this, the social media app launched a set of NFTs on Rarible, an NFT marketplace built on the Ethereum network.
Even recently, Twitter added a feature enabling Twitter Blue subscribers to upload their JPEG and PNG NFTs as their profile pictures, which will be displayed in a hexagonal shape, different from the native circular shape. However, this development is currently limited to static image NFTs available on the Ethereum blockchain and only iOS devices can access the service.
Musk has shown himself not to be a fan of the NFTs. When this feature of the NFT profile picture was added to Twitter, the tech billionaire showed his disapproval of the act in a tweet, tagging the development as “annoying.” He noted that Twitter ought to invest more in eliminating spam bots.
This is annoying pic.twitter.com/KAkDl29CTX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2022
Now that he holds ownership of the microblogging company, will Musk remove this feature from Twitter? Will he adjust the integration of Ethereum NFTs on Twitter? We will know over the course of time.
- Strengthen Twitter Security
As malicious actors have sought ways to steal from investors and organizations, Twitter security has been a matter of concern.
A report in March 2021 revealed that a German bitcoin investor had lost 10 BTC to a malicious actor who impersonated Elon Musk on their Twitter handle. This comes after Twitter prohibited its users from changing their display names to Elon Musk. This is one out of many such fraudulent scams.
An earlier report revealed that the official Twitter handles of top cryptocurrency firms such as Binance, Gemini and KuCoin were once hacked, and the new hosts promoted a fake 5000 BTC giveaway. This is another shortcoming of Twitter security.
While Twitter has been working to resolve this issue of its security, is it likely that Musk’s new acquisition will bring a significant solution to the problem? We will have to wait and see how things unfold.
