Ever since Elon took over Twitter, he continually talked about his vision for The Everything App. Many of those visions lined right up with what we're doing on https://leofinance.io with our everything app for the Hive blockchain.
He talked about fulfilling his past dreams with PayPal. He also talked about building a better digital town-square that wasn't rife with censorship.
In the screenshot above, you see that Twitter Payments, LLC has been making some key moves. Recently some acquisitions and approvals were made that position Twitter Payments to start entering the conversation.
Many are wondering if this will just be like every other banking/Web2 protocol or if it will fall more into line with crypto/web3.
I have mixed feelings about it. I see both good and bad, let's unpack it.
Twitter is Dead, Long Live X
A lot of people are upset about the X branding. Some people have been on Twitter for well over a Decade at this point and seeing the branding change is a shock to them.
Whether it's X or Twitter is irrelevant to me. I think Elon is going for this rebrand as a way to ditch the past of Twitter and focus on a brighter future that also aligns with his prior goals at PayPal to make it the center of a financial behemoth and revolutionize an industry that is long overdue.
Finance is so slow. If you've ever used a bank, you know exactly how this goes. They only work Monday-Friday and they have horrible hours. On top of that, if you send transactions or write checks, they can sometimes be put on Hold for no apparent reason for weeks on end.
TradFi is long overdue for a shakeup.
Crypto is meant to be that shakeup in many ways.
Twitter Payments... I Mean X Payments
X payments could transform the idea of Twitter. Elon has said that he thinks X should be like WeChat is in China.
With WeChat, you can do all sorts of things all in one app. People use it as basically a whole platform for their entire digital life in China.
Elon wants to do that with X. He wants it to be the hub for your digital life and a connection point for finance, social media, work-life, and more.
Blockchain is Better
Some have asked my opinion on all of this. X is moving more and more toward what we envision for the future of https://leofinance.io which is a hub for all sorts of social media actions as well as payments (LEO), subscription models (OnlyLEOs) and more.
This all being said, even if X releases all of these features, it's still not a blockchain.
The content does not live on a blockcahin.
With LEO, all your content, data and account live on a blockchain.
If X starts handling payments and other mechanisms, how long until censorship starts to play a role?
I'm confident that Elon will fight for low censorship but I don't believe he can achieve NO censorship.
On a Web2 platform that is as large as Twitter is, I simply know that the governments of the world are going to get their way in. One way or another, some level of censorship is inherent on Web2.
With Web3, we tackle all of that thanks to the Hive blockchain. I believe that X payments will be hugely successful and if they integrate Crypto, I actually think it will be beneficial to the entire crypto industry, us included.
They will help us onboard future users and capital to Hive and the rest of the crypto industry. Blockchain databases have a very unique use case and unless X launches a fully decentralized blockchain (highly unlikely) I see it as a connection point from Web2 to Web3 that will ultimately serve us in the long-run.
About LeoFinance
LeoFinance is a blockchain-based Web3 community that builds innovative applications on the Hive, BSC, ETH and Polygon blockchains. Our flagship application: LeoFinance.io allows users and creators to engage & share micro and long-form content on the blockchain while earning cryptocurrency rewards.
Our mission is to democratize financial knowledge and access with Web3.
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