X is taking its financial features a step further by allowing users in the U.S. to trade stocks directly from their timelines through participating brokerages.
The Elon Musk-owned social network launched a new feature called Cashtag on Wednesday, giving users access to stock trading through partners including Interactive Brokers, Moomoo, Gemini, Kraken, and Coinbase.
The feature builds on how people have used X for years to discuss financial markets. Cashtags, which put a dollar sign in front of stock ticker symbols, were originally introduced to make conversations about specific assets easier to find and follow. They were focused on tracking market discussions rather than executing trades.
That is now changing as X expands further into financial services with products such as X Money. Cashtags can turn stock, ETF, and cryptocurrency ticker symbols into interactive pages where users can view market information and related conversations, and now access trading options.
“Cashtags close the gap between a ticker on the timeline and the market itself,” said Mridul Singhai, X Product Engineering lead. He explained that users can tap a ticker to view the asset, its live chart and related conversations, with the option to trade through one of X’s brokerage partners.
When users tap a supported Cashtag, they can view the asset’s price chart and posts discussing it on X. They can then select the “Trade” option and continue to a participating brokerage, where they can sign in and complete a transaction. Users can also select a brokerage partner to open its mobile app or website and either access an existing account or create a new one.
X says the integration is designed to connect financial discussions on the platform with real-time trading. Monique Pintarelli, SpaceXAI’s head of Global Advertising, said the partnerships allow users to move from discovering financial information and participating in conversations to accessing a brokerage without leaving the experience.
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The new feature could also raise concerns about market manipulation. AI-powered bots, spammers and other bad actors could potentially use X conversations to influence sentiment around particular stocks or other assets. However, similar attempts to manipulate financial discussions can already take place on social media, even without a direct connection between the platform and brokerages.
