X's new Cashtags feature drives $1B trading volume in first two days

Social media platform X has already generated roughly $1 billion in trading volume from its new Cashtags feature, which allows users to view stock and crypto data directly from the app.

In a post to X on Friday, the company’s head of product, Nikita Bier, said the estimated $1 billion in trading volume was reached after launching on Tuesday night, citing data aggregated from X’s trading pilot.

The new feature — currently only available to US and Canadian users on iPhones — is part of Elon Musk’s vision of turning X into an “everything app,” including peer-to-peer payments and e-commerce.

X sees more than 550 million users each month, positioning it as one of the largest social media platforms globally and giving it the ability to compete with established financial information providers in delivering market-related content and data.

Cashtags allow users to select a specific asset or smart contract address when posting a ticker, and tapping a tag displays live price charts and related posts.

Online brokerage Wealthsimple partnered with X to integrate the Cashtag feature, enabling Canadians to click on crypto and stock tickers and be taken directly to its trading platform.

The Cashtags feature hasn’t been integrated with a US brokerage yet.

X Money is coming too

Musk’s company also has X Money in the pipeline, a peer-to-peer payments system that seeks to offer yield-bearing accounts, a cashback debit card and other perks.

X rolled out an external beta of X Money in early March, showing payments between Musk and Hollywood actor William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series.

Related: X mulls new rules for first-time crypto posts amid tortoise scam

The integration of crypto payments into X Money remains a mystery, however.

Over the last few years, X has secured money transmitter licenses in over 40 US states and registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to make peer-to-peer payments possible on the platform.

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