A company known for microblogging and social networking hopes its latest initiative will deepen its involvement in the decentralized internet
Twitter, the San Francisco-based social media company, confirmed yesterday that it is developing digital currency and blockchain projects. Under the leadership of Jack Dorsey, the company has announced a cryptocurrency team tasked with building support for digital currencies, decentralized applications (DApps) and NFT-related technologies on the platform. In its announcement, Twitter said the new group will help define “a strategy for the future of crypto on Twitter.”
Leading the team will be blockchain specialist Tess Rinearson, who previously worked with Chain.com, Cosmos and the Interchain Foundation. Rinearson also served as vice president of the Tendermint Core platform.
“I’m excited to have joined Twitter to lead a new team focused on cryptocurrencies, blockchains and other decentralized technologies — including cases that extend beyond crypto,” Rinearson wrote in a post on her account.
The initiative, called Twitter Crypto, will explore practical uses of cryptocurrencies on Twitter. The team will investigate how to support growing creator interest in using DApps and the broader Web3 ecosystem for managing currencies and virtual assets. Rinearson noted the group will also look for ways to expand what the community can do with digital assets.
“Initially, we’ll be researching how we can support the rising interest from creators in using decentralized apps to manage virtual goods and currencies, and to support their work and communities,” she said.
Previous blockchain initiatives
This is not Twitter’s first foray into blockchain and crypto. One reason the company has returned to the space is the vocal enthusiasm of its leadership for cryptocurrency — a fact reflected in Jack Dorsey’s public tweets and past actions, such as selling his first tweet as an NFT for the equivalent of roughly 1,630 ETH.
In late June, Twitter issued a set of 140 non-fungible tokens, distributing one NFT to a selected group of users. The company released twenty copies of seven different NFT designs as an experiment to explore the sector more directly.
The platform also launched a Bitcoin tipping feature in September, allowing users to send small payments through the service. The beta product debuted in May and enabled transactions through partner applications such as Venmo, Cash App, Chipper and GoFundMe. For Bitcoin specifically, users could link BTC addresses to their profiles or use the Strike app, which leverages the Bitcoin Lightning Network for faster payments.
Twitter has reportedly been pursuing broader decentralization of social platforms through the Bluesky initiative — a separate project aimed at creating open, decentralized standards for social networking. Tess Rinearson is expected to participate in that effort as well.