On Thursday, Elon Musk announced a new feature on Twitter aimed primarily at investors, financial advisors, traders, and organizations.
The new tool allows users to search keywords to see the price changes of Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) simply by typing their tickers or names into the search bar.
The social media giant has a record of connections to the bitcoin market. In September 2021, while Jack Dorsey still ran the company, it attempted to add a tipping feature that allows users to receive tips via third-party payment methods.
After that, Elon Musk took control and oversaw strategies for investing $1.5 billion in bitcoin, most of which was ultimately sold.
Twitter’s New Feature $Cashtags — What is it?
A cashtag query is a search term on the search bar comprising any well-known crypto or stock beginning with “$,” — similar to a hashtag (#) query on Twitter’s search bar — this offers a user an index of that hashtag’s most recent and notable uses on the network.
This new function has been explained on the platform itself via the Twitter Business account. If you tweet a significant stock abbreviation with a “$” sign in front of it, that stock will immediately become clickable.
For instance, all you have to do to find the price of Ethereum right now on Twitter is type “$ETH” into the search field.
Additionally, it’ll direct the user to the stock’s search results, which will display its pricing graph and other information. Users can also get price graphs by searching for ‘BTC price’ and ‘Bitcoin price.’ The crypto and stock price display may sound interesting, but it has limited application.
This is because Twitter simply presents a static image of the daily stock price next to a chart without labels or an X or Y axis. Although the tool allows for everyday price lookup, the graph only displays the stock’s most recent closing price.
The New Feature Links to Robinhood
The Twitter crypto and stock pricing display are linked to the Robinhood stock trading app. When a Twitter user wants more specific information on a particular stock or cryptocurrency, they can click the “view on Robinhood” button next to the display.
The new function is well-received on Twitter. Although, some people pointed out that Robinhood is unavailable in some nations and that they’d like Twitter to use different sources of price information. However, the logo in the image shows that Twitter is sourcing data from TradingView.
It’s unclear if the social media business will collaborate commercially with TradingView or Robinhood. Twitter didn’t disclose which symbols were listed on the newly added website’s stock price search results list.
It states that it’ll enhance user convenience and increase symbol compatibility in the upcoming weeks.
Twitter’s Previous Attempts
This isn’t Twitter’s first move into cryptocurrency. Previously, there were reports that Twitter might launch its own cryptocurrency, the Twitter Coin, which would be usable for platform payments.
The rumors began on December 4th, about a week after Musk presented the design of Twitter 2.0. This also discussed potential cryptocurrency-based payments on Twitter.
However, Musk’s future at Twitter appears to be in doubt following his infamous poll in which the controversial Businessman asked Twitter followers if he should stand down as CEO. Among most of those who participated in the poll, nearly 60% voted “Yes.”