Elon Musk's X Secures Payment Licenses In 3 States, DOGE Payments Soon?

For years, entrepreneur Elon Musk has touted Dogecoin (DOGE) and other cryptocurrencies. He has involved them in other companies, such as allowing DOGE payments for Tesla merchandise, but most of these uses have been on smaller scales. However, recent approval for numerous licenses could point towards larger plans for DOGE in the future. 

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On March 20, 2024, X Payments LLC, the arm of X responsible for driving the peer-to-peer payment business, secured three more licenses for money transmitter activities. The three states providing approval were New Mexico, Oregon and Illinois, bringing the total number of approved states to 22. The licenses are required for sending and holding customer funds, similar to how PayPal, Venmo and Cash App work. 

It is also important to note that Musk has previously served as the CEO of PayPal, so he is acquainted with the business and the bureaucratic processes involved. 

Musk has been working on making X an "everything app" since he bought the company in 2022, with the addition of payments serving as a major contributor to that vision. However, strong regulatory scrutiny makes it difficult to offer money-transmitting services to users, which is delaying Musk's plan to offer payment services.

Adding three new states to the list of approvals is positive for the company. With nearly half of the U.S. states willing to allow X to transmit money, there is somewhat of a precedent that could make it easier for others to provide licenses and bring X closer to Musk's goal.

Additionally, many have speculated about what payments on X could look like. With Musk's known affinity for DOGE and other tokens, it would make sense for X to incorporate that into their platform. Musk also mentioned in his biography that he would like to incorporate DOGE with social media before buying X.

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Musk was also in Germany earlier this month visiting the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg. He was asked about adding DOGE payments for a Tesla car, to which Musk responded, "At some point, I think we should enable that," which was met with a cheer. 

While these signs point towards a likelihood of DOGE on X, Musk's past interactions with crypto as a form of payment could serve as a cautionary tale. Musk began offering the ability to buy a Tesla car with Bitcoin in 2021 but ended the program within a few months, citing environmental concerns. While Tesla has continued to invest in Bitcoin, it has not offered it as a payment option. 

DOGE is a fork of Bitcoin, meaning that it uses the same energy-demanding method of transaction verification as Bitcoin. While DOGE does not create emissions on the same scale as Bitcoin, it is still something that Elon is concerned about and could impact a final decision on whether or not to offer DOGE.

As X Payments seems like more of a possibility, Musk will have to decide whether to offer DOGE on his platform. 

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