“Your feedback is appreciated. Now pay $8.”
Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur and businessman. Musk became an avid computer wizard at a young age. After moving to Canada at 18, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics and physics before entering the business world. As one of the world’s wealthiest people, he’s the owner of Twitter, CEO of Tesla, founder and CEO of SpaceX, founder of The Boring Company, a co-founder of OpenAI and Neuralink, and was involved with PayPal. Musk is active on Twitter and is well-known for his support of Bitcoin and Dogecoin, even getting his own Shiba Inu dog in 2021, named “Floki.”
Coincidently, the global crypto community — that once resided on disparate blogs and forums — adopted Twitter as one of its go-to social media platforms. While Twitter was initially primarily used for public announcements and general updates, the space quickly evolved to house a community known as “Crypto Twitter,” which focuses on discussing, questioning, investigating and sharing its views on matters that directly impact the crypto ecosystem. Crypto Twitter is highly expressive, vigilant, emotional and collaborative, making it a crucial entity of the crypto ecosystem.
On Oct. 27, Musk struck a deal to take over Twitter. The transaction cost him $44 billion and a great deal more, as he made drastic, often controversial changes to the company’s structure and the platform’s policies and features. Before the purchase, Musk publicly proclaimed war on spam and scam bots on Twitter, including those pushing crypto scams, saying they were a plague on the platform and would be one of his top priorities for Twitter should he take the helm. In December, many in the crypto community began to note a vast reduction in spambots. At the time, Musk said he would also move to prosecute scammers on the platform.
With myriad ecosystem collapses, scams and hacks overshadowing the accomplishments made in crypto throughout 2022, Twitter served as a gateway to unleash discussions and drive the community sentiment on certain matters. From tracking down former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to issuing proactive warnings to investors against scams and hacks, Crypto Twitter came together in numerous instances for a common goal. Throughout the year, Twitter was used for sharing information in real time, allowing investors, lawmakers and the general public to gauge time-sensitive insights. Musk’s Twitter acquisition also resulted in some pro-crypto initiatives for the platform, such as the ability to check the price of individual cryptocurrencies through “$cashtags.”
Musk lost his crown as the world’s richest man in December 2022 due to a fall in the price of Tesla shares. Furthermore, Tesla made waves after revealing it had sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings in the second quarter.
Musk is likely to continue to make tweaks to Twitter in 2023, noting in November 2022 that users should expect “lots of dumb things” on the social media platform over the coming months as it trials new features. The ability to self-verify profiles is expected to drastically reduce scam accounts, helping to protect new crypto investors. Also, the highly anticipated long-form tweet feature will allow Crypto Twitter community members to express their points of view without using screenshots or never-ending threads. Ultimately, regardless of Musk’s extensive internal restructuring and new feature introductions, Twitter has cemented its position as a home for the crypto-friendly crowd.
Musk is understood to be on the lookout for a new CEO of Twitter, with the tens of millions of users that make Crypto Twitter hoping for the inclusion of more blockchain-friendly features. Twitter added a crypto price index feature in late 2022, and some hope that the platform’s rumored “Twitter Coins” will incorporate crypto or blockchain. Perhaps, the Twitter tip jar will support a greater number of cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin and Ether, with some believing that Dogecoin will be one of the first memecoins to join the list.
