The social network Twitter has taken a first step towards cryptocurrencies by allowing, at the end of September 2021, to use Bitcoin (BTC) and its Lightning Network to offer tips to the content creator on its network. Its new “Twitter Crypto” team plans to go far beyond that, and wants to help develop the sector.
Twitter founds a crack team dedicated to cryptos
Jack Dorsey, the CEO and founder of Twitter, is an avid crypto-enthusiast, especially of Bitcoin. His other company, Square, has dedicated one of its services to selling BTC, called Square Crypto.
But today, this immersion in crypto-assets goes far beyond the bluebird social network, Twitter. Tess Rinearson, an advisor to the Interchain Foundation, has announced that she will be the chief engineer of Twitter’s new team dedicated to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies, soberly called “Twitter Crypto”.
Not only does the company seem to want to integrate the many use cases created by the sector, such as non-fungible tokens (NFT), but Twitter also has ambitions to lead new developments.
“I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve joined Twitter to lead a new team focused on cryptos, blockchains and other decentralized technologies, even beyond cryptocurrencies. (…) As I build the team, we will focus on figuring out what cryptos can bring to Twitter, and what Twitter can bring to cryptos. Twitter has really ‘figured out’ crypto-assets (look at bitcoin tips and NFTs), but there’s so much more to explore here.”
Tess Rinearson
Bluesky, for a more decentralized Twitter revival?
As stated in a publication of the Financial Times, Tess Rinearson will also be part of the new social network decentralization project, called Bluesky, funded by Twitter.
Led by former Zcash (ZEC) developer Jay Graber, this open source project aims to improve the censorship resistance of social networks, to put them beyond the reach of a centralized authority, such as a state (or a CEO who has the disturbing power to censor even a U.S. president).
This protocol could also help with social network interoperability and create “a market for moderation algorithms/filters.” Given the company’s current business model (very centralized and ad-centric), these developments do not necessarily convince Twitter’s shareholders, since its TWTR share has just reached a 6-month low, close to $52 at the time of writing.
Twitter’s desire to be omnipotent in the cryptocurrency business is becoming quite worrying. Indeed, on top of all this, Jack Dorsey also wants his companies to create a bitcoin hardware wallet and crypto mining devices.
