Elon Musk's X makes its foray into financial services sector

The Elon Musk-led X (formerly Twitter) has acquired a currency transmitter licence for the social media platform in a US state. This is a major sign that X will soon support processing payments in crypto and flat currencies.

Musk has been catching flak for rebranding Twitter for a while now. For instance, he was met with boos from the crowd when he recently attended the Valorant World Championship Final in Los Angeles. Undeterred by this criticism, the 52-year-old billionaire continues to revamp the microblogging platform.

The future of Elon Musk's X

In line with this, Musk recently introduced a job-hiring feature called Hirings in a bid to compete with LinkedIn. Now, it looks like X has acquired a licence that enables the company to carry out custody, transfer, as well as the exchange of digital currencies.

After acquiring X last year, Musk said he wants to transform it into an "everything app." According to the Twitter owner, the platform will allow users to not only communicate but also share, and also process payments in the future.

Making its foray into the financial services sector, X has acquired a currency transmitter licence in Rhode Island. It is worth noting that the currency transmitter license is legally required for companies that facilitate financial activities on behalf of users related to sending and receiving money. This includes both fiat, as well as crypto assets.

According to NMLS (Nationwide Multi-State Licensing System), X's Rhode Island Currency Transmitter License was approved on August 28.

The word on the street is that the payments feature on X will initially only allow payments in fiat currencies. However, sources have suggested that the upgraded version of the feature could allow the transfer and exchange of cryptocurrencies as well.

How did the crypto market react?

Much to Musk's relief, the crypto market responded positively earlier this week. The crypto sector valuation increased overnight by four percent, bringing its value to $1.09 trillion (about £784.8 billion), according to the data shared by CoinMarketCap.

As if that weren't enough, Musk's favourite altcoin, Dogecoin also spiked in value by more than 3 per cent, Interestingly, Musk hasn't posted anything about X acquiring the license yet. X has previously acquired a money transmitter licence from other US states including Missouri, and New Hampshire.

Reportedly, Rhode Island is the seventh state to approve the licence for X. It will be interesting to see exactly what financial offerings will be made available when X introduces the payment features. People familiar with X's plans claim the company will initially offer transaction services similar to PayPal.