Are Elon Musk’s crypto plans for Twitter changing?

Many in the crypto world rejoiced when Elon Musk took over Twitter last week, which Dogecoin fanatics’ tweets and leaked texts pointed to deeper blockchain integration into the social media platform. DOGE even doubled in price in the days that followed. But crypto may not be as big a priority for Musk’s Twitter as some hoped, based on new reporting.

On October 24, just before Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the tech leaker noted Jane Manchun Wong tweeted that the company was working on a “wallet prototype” that would support cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals. Wong is known for share known leaks from Twitter and other technology platforms that have often been proven correct.

On Thursday evening, however, the technology journalist Casey Newton came from Platforms reported that plans have changed under Musk’s leadership. Newton wrote that “a recently revealed plan to build a crypto wallet because Twitter seems to be on hiatus.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment Decrypt. The price of DOGE fell sharply after yesterday’s report – about 10% in a few hours – but has largely recovered since. At a current price of $0.128, it is still up 115% in the last 14 days.

DOGE had rallied not only because of Musk’s long-shared love for the leading meme coin, although tweets from the self-proclaimed “Dogefather” often had a clear impact on the market price.

He had that too teased intentions to integrate Dogecoin as a payment option on Twitter, in the same way as Musk’s Tesla and The Boring Company accept DOGE payments To a certain extent. In a leaked transcript from a Q&A with Twitter employees in June, Musk further says points to crypto payments as a central focus going forward.

Elon Musk had also flirted with ways to create a blockchain-powered social media platform to replace Twitter, which revealed through leaked texts with his brother, Kimbal. The now-CEO of Twitter proposed a platform in April that required small DOGE payments to post, but then reversed himself days later, saying that “blockchain Twitter is not possible.”

Meanwhile, leaked texts between Musk and Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey-one noted Bitcoin maximalist and co-founder and current CEO of Block (formerly Square, Inc.)—revealed that Dorsey pushed Musk to turn Twitter into a decentralized protocol. Musk seemed receptive to Dorsey’s suggestion.

Twitter is changing

If Musk really wants to integrate crypto payments into Twitter, a wallet will be at the heart of this initiative. But if that plan is indeed “on hiatus” for the time being, then deeper integration of crypto into Twitter may not be on the short-term roadmap after all.

The news comes at a time of dramatic change for Twitter following Musk’s purchase. Not only were top executives quickly ousted, but Twitter began what appears to be widespread layoffs Thursday night, with reports that Musk plan to eliminate approximately half of the company’s 7,500-strong workforce.

Twitter has also been full of discussion this week Musk’s plan to make account verification widely available via a monthly fee through a renewed Twitter Blue subscription. The new plan will reportedly go into effect on Monday, November 7 and will cost users $8 per month.

Currently, users who meet certain criteria – including public figures, journalists and government officials – can be verified for free. However, most of these users will reportedly lose their verification (and associated blue tick) within 90 days of the new model’s launch. The proposed plan has generated significant backlash and controversy from users.

Whether Musk’s Twitter makes crypto a priority remains to be seen, but at least one of the major backers behind the deal is pushing for it. Crypto exchange Binance staked $500 million into the $44 billion purchase, hoping to help Twitter embrace Web3. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has pushed its Binance Pay platform as an alternative for Twitter payments.

And if Twitter eventually doesn’t follow that path—or doesn’t soon—then perhaps Musk’s more crypto-focused supporters will move to one of the many decentralized and crypto-friendly social media platforms have increased recently.