When social media turns into a trading portal.

Written by: Wenser (@wenser 2010), Planet Daily

In the early hours of today, a lengthy article from the commercialization department of the X platform once again brought the Cashtag feature into the market spotlight.

According to official news, the X platform has launched the X Cashtag Partner Program in the United States, adding a "Trade" entry to Cashtag. Users can view asset price charts and related posts by clicking on supported stock, ETF, or cryptocurrency Cashtags, and jump to partner brokers to complete transactions through the "Trade" entry; the first batch of partner brokers includes Interactive Brokers, Moomoo, Gemini, Kraken, and Coinbase.

Earlier this year, we envisioned many possibilities for Cashtag in the article, "From Liking Tweets to Buying Tokens: Can 'Smart Asset Tags' Turn X into a Crypto 'Trading Terminal'?". Now, that vision is gradually becoming a reality.

The X Platform Teams Up with 5 Major Platforms to Open a "New Chapter in Social Finance": Established Brokers and Crypto Exchanges are the First Partners

Taking a closer look at the list of partners for this cooperation, we can see it is a balanced choice after research.

Among them, Interactive Brokers and Moomoo belong to traditional broker platforms, but they still have distinct differences. The former is one of the established top brokers offering a wide range of asset trading, including cryptocurrencies, U.S. stocks, ETFs, and derivatives, primarily serving institutional and professional traders; while the latter is more inclined towards internet-savvy brokerage, focusing more on retail and small investors.

Gemini, Kraken, and Coinbase are native crypto exchanges, supporting more cryptocurrencies and offering richer on-chain interactions and derivative functionalities. Furthermore, the responses from the three exchanges have been quite Memetic; Coinbase's official account appeared in the comments section, directly @ing Grok to verify the news; Kraken and its subsidiary Kraken Pro expressed their anticipation and positive responses to the partnership in terms of "BTC receiving more attention" and "friendly exchanges between both sides."

It is worth mentioning that some community members in the comments expressed disappointment that their preferred trading platforms did not appear in the "first batch of partners", including the U.S. compliant trading platform backpack and Robinhood, which has seen its stock tokens and Meme coin market heat up recently; there were also mentions from BNB community members that Binance had made a small investment in the X platform, looking forward to future cooperation.

However, considering the strict compliance requirements for businesses in the U.S., it may be difficult to see new trading platforms cooperate in the short term.

For this cooperation, Monique, the global advertising director of SpaceXAI, also expressed her vision for future user experience: "Users will be able to smoothly transition from information discovery and topic discussions to brokerage trading without interrupting their current experience." In a sense, the opening of the trading entry for the Cashtag feature truly realizes the "Click to Trade" for users.

The Business Behind Cashtag: Testing Phase of 4 Days Broke $1 Billion in Trading Volume, Expected to Drive at Least $25 Billion by Year-End

If in the past, the influence range of the X platform still remained at the level of "information", after Cashtag interconnected broker and exchange trading entries, the X platform has made a deeper connection with financial assets for the first time, becoming a "new entry for social finance" for countless U.S. X platform users.

It is noteworthy that the former product head responsible for the Cashtag feature, Nikita, publicly stated in April this year that in less than a week (from April 14 to 17), social platform X globally drove approximately $1 billion in trading volume according to trading pilot summary data. This data shows a significant pulling effect on market liquidity and user participation after the combination of social platforms and trading functionalities.

At that time, the Cashtag feature only supported "viewing real-time data and price charts of corresponding stocks or crypto assets," and its effect on boosting trading volume was already about $250 million in daily trading volume, which was very noticeable. By this data calculation, by the end of this year, the X platform is expected to bring at least $25 billion in trading volume to platforms like Interactive Brokers and Coinbase, not to mention the potential significant promotion in trading volume after the trading steps are shortened.

Additionally, although Nikita is no longer in the role of product head of the X platform, her previous planning for Cashtag's functionality remains valid. In February of this year, she publicly stated, "X will not be responsible for trade execution or act as a broker; it is only building financial data tools and links." As it stands, the X platform is indeed more modest, integrating with trading platforms like Interactive Brokers, Moomoo, and Coinbase, "handing over professional matters to professionals," which remains the best choice for a social media platform.

For the now-former product head, Nikita, although she did not witness the official launch of the Cashtag trading entry during her tenure, the final product direction still aligns with her planning, which is somewhat gratifying.

Finally, from the current Cashtag feature of the X platform, its trading entry opens different trading channels based on asset types:

Taking Tesla stock as an example, its trading entry includes only Gemini, Interactive Brokers, Moomoo, and Morgan Stanley's digital self-trading platform E*TRADE, while the BTC Cashtag trading entry includes Kraken, Gemini, Moomoo, Interactive Brokers, and E*TRADE.

BTC Cashtag Interface

U.S. Stock Tesla Cashtag Interface

It remains to be seen whether Cashtag can inject new ideas and innovative business models into the commercialization department of the X platform in the future.