Twitter announces new ‘Crypto’ division to ‘push the boundaries of what’s possible’

‘Twitter truly “gets” crypto (hello bitcoin tipping & NFTs!) but there’s so much more to explore here’ said lead Tess Rinearson

NIGERIA TWITTER (AP)

Twitter is building a new division called Twitter Crypto to develop digital currencies, blockchain technology, and “other decentralised technologies”, it has announced.

The news comes from Tess Rinearson, the team’s engineering lead, via a thread on the platform. “We’ll be working to figure out what crypto can do for Twitter, as well as what Twitter can do for crypto”, Rinearson said. “Twitter truly ‘gets’ crypto (hello bitcoin tipping & NFTs!) but there’s so much more to explore here.”

The social media company added crypto currencies to its Tips feature in September, and the company is ‘exploring’ NFT authentication that will let users directly connect their crypto wallets and show off their NFT ownership on Twitter.

Rinearson hypothesised about using decentralised apps to manage virtual products and currencies, as well as “push[ing] the boundaries of what’s possible with identity, community, [and] ownership”.

The new group will also be working with Twitter’s Bluesky team to build a decentralised social network, although what form that will take remains to be seen. “Our goal is to be a client of that standard for the public conversation layer of the internet”, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has tweeted, but tangible details on the matter are as-yet unknown.

Mr Dorsey has been a long advocate of crypto and blockchain technologies, having recently purchased a bitcoin startup called TBD that he said will “help [Twitter] build an open platform to create a decentralised exchange for bitcoin”. Mr Dorsey has also said that the bitcoin community is “weird as hell” and reminds him of the “early internet”.