Elon Musk is ridiculed for may different reasons. A lot of it he brings on himself. One of the factors could be the fact he sets insane goals. Then he goes public with them which sets him up to attack.
The situation with Twitter certainly opened up a lot of cans. Musk overpaid for the
network. Then he rolled out the Twitter Blue too soon, a move that was rescinded not long after.
Perhaps nothing sounded as crazy as his statement that he wanted to "make Twitter the largest
financial institution in the world".
When we consider the
market capitalization of some of the largest
banks, it really is laughable.
Or is it?
We recently saw another step in this direction.
[Source](https://www.gearrice.com/update/elon-musk-sets-a-new-date-for-the-removal-of-the-old-verified-on-twitter/)
Partnership With eToro
According to reports, Twitter users will have the ability to get
price feeds for
cryptocurrency and
stock and then purchase those
assets through the eToro application. This is one of the moves meant to appeal to younger users.
Starting April 13th, users will be able to view “market charts on an expanded range of financial instruments” and the ability to purchase those assets through the eToro service.
Users can view real-time financial
data by utilizing Twitter’s “cashtags” feature, which requires you to search for the ticker symbol of the desired asset and put a dollar sign in front of it. The user will then be presented with detailed price information, provided by a TradingView.
[Source](https://hackernoon.com/what-the-twitter-and-etoro-partnership-means-for-crypto-trading)
This is a big move and will likely put pressure on other social media
applications. Twitter already filed the necessary applications to start offering
payment services through the platform, similar to PayPal.
Decisions like this is starting to change the
social media world. No longer are we dealing with that sector exclusively. It is starting to integrate
finance throughout the network.
Here we are watching a radical shift taking place.
Musk has the desire to create the "Everything App". He wants a central entity which offers social media engagement, commercial products, and
financial services.
He is on the way to achieving this.
Does This Help Web 3?
We need to be clear: Elon Musk is not part of Web 3.0.
What he is constructing is within the realm of
Web 2.0. There is nothing decentralized about his venture nor is that any indication that the ownership model is going to change.
Accounts are still under the control of Twitter. There is no sovereignty there. All terms of services that were in place still apply.
This moves does start the process of getting people accustomed to interacting with financial services through their social media applications. For the West, this is a big step. Users of WeChat are already familiar with this.
Musk is thinking big while also raising the bar. Platforms such as
YouTube and
Facebook are going to have to follow suit.
The combination of social media and finance is clear. This is obviously the direction things are heading in. Hive is already well positioned for this since both aspects, to a degree, are covered.
What Musk is creating is akin to the foundation of Web 3.0. Since we are dealing with
blockchain, we can see how financial
transactions are fundamental. Nevertheless, unlike Twitter, account ownership, hence asset, is provided.
This might be a situation where Elon is developing Web 2.5. It is a move that could be leveraged by Web 3.0.
Musk Will Achieve His Goal
We should operate from the premise that Musk will achieve his goal. In other words, we should prepare where Twitter becomes the largest financial institution in the world.
The partnership with eToro is just an early step. This gets the platform into the stock game, albeit not directly. It would not be surprising to see an application such as that or Robin Hood purchased by Twitter. Then the services could be integrated directly.
It also stands that we will see something similar with
mortgages. The lending
market is enormous and
FinTech did a great job of taking a large share of loan origination from the banks. Since Musk also owns a large chunk of Twitter, it is easy to envision a day when people will get their
loans for cars through this platform.
What this means for Web 3.0 is that we should first mirror Musk, and then surpass him. He is still operating within the traditional financial arena. This can be looked at as switching the deck chairs by the pool. Musk is looking to take on PayPal, JP Morgan, and TDAmeritrade.
It is no coincidence that
Bitcoin emerged looking to counter the power of the
banks. Eventually, we can look at Twitter as this.
Here we simply have another entity that is a foe. It matters none how much one likes (or dislikes) Elon. Even if he is benevolent in his actions, he is still a dictator at the top of a centralized entity. This is not in keeping with the tenets of
Web 3.0.
Largest Financial Institution In The World
This is the goal of Musk. It is a worthwhile one. He might have overpaid for Twitter, spending $44 billion. However, that is small compared to the other entities mentioned in this article. PayPal, as an example is worth nearly twice what Musk spent on Twitter. Then we have the likes of JP Morgan, which are worth hundreds of billions of
dollars.
It is something that Elon Musk should not have possession of. Instead, we should have this goal in cryptocurrency. That means Hive should set this down as the ultimate end.
This will be the topic of an upcoming article.
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