<\/p>\n
Elon Musk is going through it. Crypto might just be the answer.<\/p>\n
First, he paid way too much to take Twitter private last year. Now, he\u2019s mugging off the biggest companies in the world \u2014 specifically Disney and CEO Bob Iger \u2014 for pulling advertising from X after Musk\u2019s comments<\/a> about Israel and Palestine and concerns<\/a> about pro-Nazi content.<\/p>\n X, formerly known as Twitter, will go bankrupt over a sustained advertising boycott, the world\u2019s richest man told New York Times DealBook\u2019s Aaron Sorkin at an event overnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to blackmail me with advertising money? Go fuck youself,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n Okay, Elon Musk, you\u2019ve previously said<\/a> that X would never launch its own token. And you\u2019ve already dabbled in bitcoin, dogecoin and ether \u2014 with Tesla still owning 9,720 BTC ($337 million) as of October.<\/p>\n But if the goal is to pay off your financiers and plug a measly $75 million hole in your advertising revenue, there\u2019s no faster solution than crypto.<\/p>\n Musk was already Twitter\u2019s biggest shareholder when he first offered to buy Twitter in April 2022 for $44 billion. At $54.20 per share, Musk told<\/a> the SEC his bid represented a 54% premium on the stock\u2019s valuation before he\u2019d bought his first shares.<\/p>\n Despite initially fighting to renege \u2014 on grounds that Twitter hadn\u2019t proved its claim that 95% of daily active users were actual humans and not bots \u2014 Musk eventually was forced<\/a> to follow through as his offer was legally binding.<\/p>\n A raft of executives were immediately fired, including CEO Parag Agrawal, who took over from founder Jack Dorsey in 2021, and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, who\u2019d been at the company since 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk later said<\/a> he had cut 80% of Twitter staff after the buyout, upwards of 6,000 skulls.<\/p>\n A massively reduced headcount has not been enough to counteract advertiser exodus. Musk\u2019s buyout was confirmed in October and reports indicated Twitter revenues had sunk 40% by December.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Twitter had unbanned a cavalcade<\/a> of agent provocateurs including Andrew Tate, <\/strong>Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jordan Peterson, Kanye West and Donald Trump (although the latter has so far snubbed<\/a> the platform in favor of his own Truth Social).<\/p>\n Apple, IBM, Paramount, Airbnb, Warner Bros. and Comcast \u2014 alongside Disney \u2014 have since reportedly<\/a> pulled ads and Twitter, now X, is bleeding cash. The New York Times estimated<\/a> Twitter could stand to lose $75 million in ad revenue by the end of the year, with more brands expected to leave after Musk\u2019s DealBook appearance.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s also X\u2019s heavy debt load. Musk borrowed $13 billion with the help<\/a> of Morgan Stanley, a loan collateralized by Tesla stock (of which Musk owns $100 billion).\u00a0<\/p>\n One estimate suggested Musk\u2019s financiers would\u2019ve made between 1% and 3% on the value of the $44 billion deal. X would owe Morgan Stanley up to $1.3 billion if that\u2019s true (although there\u2019s some argument<\/a> to be made that Musk now has the upper hand against the banks due to rising interest rates).<\/p>\n Read more from our opinion section:<\/strong> Let Michael Saylor cook<\/a><\/p>\n There\u2019s also the suite of equity co-investors that Musk now has to appease<\/a>, including former CEO Dorsey, Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, embattled crypto exchange Binance<\/a> and Prince Al Waleed of Saudi Arabia, among others, who together reportedly contributed more than $8 billion. Musk even borrowed $1 billion from his other company, SpaceX.<\/p>\n All this is, apparently, enough to make a man curse at Disney billionaires. But I\u2019m here to tell Musk there\u2019s another way: Launch your own cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n Projects have found great success in launching tokens over the past 18 months. Arbitrum (ARB<\/a>), Optimism (OP<\/a>) and Celestia (TIA<\/a>) are all now valued at more than $1 billion with a tiny fraction of the 300 million-plus monetizable users on X.<\/p>\n Even BLUR<\/a>, the governance token for the NFT marketplace of the same name, is worth more than half-a-billion, even though the platform has only 50,000 active weekly traders.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hell, a one-way bridge to a network that doesn\u2019t yet exist<\/a> has now attracted more than $600 million with nothing but a website and a plan.<\/p>\n An X cryptocurrency could do all sorts of things: Membership and perks through Twitter Blue, tipping or even betting on sports events live-streamed directly on the app.\u00a0<\/p>\n X could even pay creators<\/a> their cut of advertising revenue in the token, saving the company real US dollars it needs to pay back its backers.<\/p>\n I could probably understand the hesitancy to mint a cryptocurrency in cycles past. Selling a token seemed cheap in 2018 and 2019 \u2014 even cheaper than peddling<\/a> dogecoin \u2014 but cycles of influencer NFT drops and DAO launches have since freed crypto of all its shame.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dragging your feet any longer makes little sense. You\u2019re already on record stating<\/a> you have no respect for the SEC, which means you\u2019ll fit in perfectly round here.<\/p>\n And besides, what better way to stick it to the SEC, who, coincidentally has a bonafide bone to pick<\/a> with crypto?\u00a0<\/p>\n Go on, use crypto for its number-one use case: Attracting pseudonymous liquidity with few questions asked. At this point, there\u2019s nothing left to lose.<\/p>\n
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