"Crypto's Had a Rough Year"—Bier Teases a Fix as X Money Launch Date Approaches

Nikita Bier, X's head of product, dropped a cryptic post this week that quickly racked up over 677,000 views. "Crypto has had a rough year. Maybe we should launch something to fix it," he wrote. The man tweets like someone who just discovered Telegram and somehow already has 677K eyes on him—respect.

The timing is notable. X Money goes live this month, complete with peer-to-peer transfers, bank deposits, a debit card, and cashback rewards. The product runs on Visa and operates through a licensed subsidiary in more than 40 U.S. states. That's a lot of TradFi scaffolding for an app that once pretended it wasn't building a payments feature.

On paper, it's a fiat-first product. No confirmed crypto functionality. X hasn't explicitly ruled out blockchain rails either, leaving that door open. Classic "we're not saying no, but we're definitely not saying yes" energy. The blockchain door is cracked just enough to keep degens doom-posting in replies.

Three weeks ago, X brought on Benji Taylor, formerly Aave's Chief Product Officer and Head of Design at Base. Bier called one of Taylor's past products "among the best-designed" he'd seen. So now Aave's CPO is building payments for a platform where the CEO still thinks liking posts pays the bills. The crypto talent pipeline flows ever onward.

So does X Money compete with crypto or integrate it? The answer remains unclear.