Twitter has partnered with financial services company eToro to allow its users to trade stocks, digital currencies and other assets via the blue bird platform.
The new feature, $Cashtags, allows users to view market charts for a wider selection of financial instruments and trade various assets on eToro.
To access price information, users need to search for a ticker symbol and add a dollar sign in front of it. After that, they can view the data from TradingView through the app’s API.
₿𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: Twitter is adopting #bitcoin@ElonMusk moves one step closer to intergrating universally accessible #bitcoin payments into the most popular global communication app on the internet.
Communications + Payments = Everything App pic.twitter.com/TdngtUvmJH
— Documenting ₿itcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) April 13, 2023
By clicking the “View on eToro” button, users will be redirected to eToro’s website, where they can start trading.
In an interview with CNBC, eToro CEO Yoni Assia explained that the company had observed a significant increase in user engagement on Twitter and a growing interest in market education among its users, which has contributed to their considerable growth over the last three years.
Assia said that Twitter has a vast amount of high-quality, real-time content related to financial analysis. Partnering with Twitter will help eToro expand its reach to new audiences and strengthen the connection between the two brands.
JUST IN: Twitter partners with eToro to enable users to trade #crypto and stocks, CNBC reports.
— Crypto Trends (@CryptoTrends) April 13, 2023
Transforming Twitter into ‘super app’
The partnership came after Twitter CEO Elon Musk changed the company’s name to X Corp, symbolizing its transformation into an “everything app.”
Aside from his plan to transform X into a mobile payment platform where users can earn interest on their funds, the billionaire also revealed plans to broaden the app’s range of services to include ride-hailing and food delivery.
Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022
Musk praised WeChat for being an all-in-one app that combines the features of Twitter, PayPal and more. He described it as having a great interface and an excellent app. “We don’t have anything like that outside of China,” he said.
Competition with traditional brokers
Michael Ashley Schulman, Chief Investment Officer and founding partner at Running Point Capital Advisors, viewed the partnership between Twitter/X and eToro as a preliminary move towards competing with traditional brokerage firms.
He saw integrating “social, shopping, Web3, and financial services” into a super app similar to WeChat as a “worthwhile goal and a bit of a holy grail.”
Schulman also noted that the partnership with eToro, which provides access to stocks, crypto and other assets, is just the first of many steps, especially given Twitter’s popularity among investors.
Schulman predicted that Twitter would soon introduce payment functionality competing with services like Apple Pay, PayPal/Venmo and Block/CashApp.
🎉Very excited to be launching a new $Cashtags partnership with @Twitter which will enable Twitter users to see real-time prices for a much wider range of stocks, crypto & other assets as well as having the option to invest through eToro. @elonmusk https://t.co/Iv2q9iNxbf
— eToro (@eToro) April 13, 2023
On the other hand, Frank Capital Partners’ chief investment officer Brian Frank voiced his skepticism about Twitter/X’s potential to become a leader in the financial services industry.
While acknowledging the partnership as a positive step, he maintained that Twitter’s limited ability to monetize users and compensate content creators might hinder its progress in achieving its $44 billion takeover valuation.
$Cashtags, now with data 📈
👀 $SPY 👇 pic.twitter.com/XgOK6gf02E
— Twitter Business (@TwitterBusiness) December 21, 2022
Frank observed that although Twitter has a strong user base in the finance industry, brokerages like eToro and Robinhood are more attractive to retail investors and seem to have already captured a significant portion of the market.
Frank cited Robinhood’s 2022 10-K report to support his viewpoint, saying that the platform had 23 million funded accounts with only a one percent increase. He explained that eToro and Twitter’s growth might be difficult as they would need to win over Robinhood’s existing user base.
