X Hires Coinbase Design Chief Ahead of X Money Launch

X has hired a new design lead with a background in the cryptocurrency space.

Benji Taylor, formerly head of design at Coinbase’s Base blockchain network, announced his new role in a social media post Wednesday (March 25).

His hiring was flagged in a report by Coindesk, which notes that this adds someone with crypto experience to the company as X continues its push into the payments space.

Elon Musk, head of X and its parent xAI, said earlier this month that X Money was due to launch in “early public access” in April. The service is said to feature peer-to-peer (P2P) payment capabilities, bank deposits, a debit card and cash-back rewards in more than 40 U.S. states.

Musk has for years been campaigning to turn X into a super app, although he had expected that transition to have happened by now.

“If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform,” Musk said. “Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just, like, send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”

In April 2023, the multimillionaire told employees of the company — then still known as Twitter — that his vision was to turn the platform into a $250 million company. These plans echoed Musk’s roots at the company that would eventually become PayPal, but was once known as X.com.

“I think it’s possible to become the biggest financial institution in the world,” Musk said at a conference in March 2023.

As the Coindesk report points out, there was no mention at the time of blockchain or cryptocurrency playing a role in X money. However, the news outlet had reported in February that X was planning to let users trade socks and cryptocurrencies on their timelines.

In other P2P news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about the way interoperability is set to become the “defining feature” of these payments as digital wallets evolve.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that while digital wallet use is growing, it’s not without some snags. For example, almost 28% of consumers who do not use digital wallets for cross-border payments point to incompatibility between sender and recipient systems as the primary obstacle.

“The data indicates that digital wallets succeed within their own environments, but friction emerges at the edges, where ecosystems intersect,” PYMNTS wrote.

“Interoperability addresses that friction by allowing funds to move without regard to platform boundaries. In practical terms, it reduces failed transactions, simplifies user decisions and extends reach into cross-border corridors.”