Just now! Elon Musk turned X into a trading terminal—are the 500 million retail investors' "immense wealth" still a "trap to lure more investors"?

Platform X has launched a feature called Smart Cashtags in the United States and Canada. Now, users can embed real-time stock and cryptocurrency price charts directly into their feeds. Clicking on $BTC or pasting a contract address allows users to view candlestick charts, related discussions, and market data without switching pages. Currently, this service is only available to iPhone users.

The platform’s product director wrote in an official announcement that this is just the first step toward building the best platform in finance and the crypto space. The announcement received over 24k likes within a few hours.

The crypto community’s response was very quick. A senior media personality immediately posted that $BTC has officially landed on X, citing the announcement as a small preview of their future plans. Another media outlet confirmed the feature’s launch and added details about a trading pilot in partnership with Wealthsimple in Canada, allowing users to trade directly within the app.

When the Cashtags feature was launched, the price of $BTC remained around $75,000, supported by multiple institutional bullish signals. Morgan Stanley’s spot Bitcoin ETF began trading last week, accumulating $33.9 million in assets on its first day.

BlackRock’s CEO stated in a TV interview that they are at the beginning of sustained growth in capital markets, further reinforcing institutional demand for crypto assets.

On-chain data shows that whale addresses holding between 1,000 and 10,000 $BTC now control over 4.25 million $BTC, about 21.3% of the total supply. This is the highest level since mid-February. These large holders added approximately 27,652 $BTC in a single day. Historically, such continuous accumulation rather than selling usually occurs before a price increase.

The bullish logic centers on user scale. X has over 500 million monthly active users worldwide. Embedding financial data directly into feeds removes a major barrier for ordinary users to access the crypto market. An on-chain analysis account commented that X has turned your dynamic page into a trading terminal.

Internal algorithm experts linked this update to Elon Musk’s grand plans, believing that from payments to cryptocurrencies to real-time market data, the rollout of a super app is happening much faster than expected. Within minutes of the announcement, a well-known trader shared this update with their followers.

Not everyone is celebrating. Some users directly countered, pointing out that this isn’t a new feature for X, only an official formalization. The only new aspect is the partnership with third-party exchanges to support trading. Currently, the feature is limited to iPhone users in the US and Canada, which accounts for a tiny fraction of global users.

The trading feature is only piloted in Canada through Wealthsimple, meaning most users can only view but not buy. Video creators highlighted the risk of false information: multiple tokens unrelated to official channels, using names like “X Money” to hype and manipulate prices.

Elon Musk’s official X Money payment platform is an independent fiat and crypto payment product and has not issued any public tokens. These imitation tokens on exchanges are actually extremely bearish in sentiment.

The product director repeatedly mentioned “first step” and “preview” in the announcement, indicating that Cashtags is just the beginning. The key question is whether X will expand the Wealthsimple trading pilot beyond Canada, especially into the US. If US users can also buy $BTC directly within the app, the retail market’s participation effect will truly manifest.

So far, $BTC’s response to this news has been lukewarm, with prices still stable around $75,000. The optimistic statements from institutional executives, combined with whale holdings reaching new highs and ETF funds continuing to flow in, suggest that the macro environment remains positive regardless of X’s subsequent moves.

As one popular crypto influencer with many followers said, Cashtags is just the first step toward building the best platform in finance and crypto. Whether this is just market hype or a sign of industry transformation ultimately depends on Musk’s team’s ability to quickly turn “viewing market data” into “actual trading.”