In a new partnership with eToro, Twitter has announced that users can now access stocks, cryptocurrencies, and other financial assets. The feature, which was rolled out on Thursday, lets users view market charts on a wider range of financial instruments and buy and sell assets directly through eToro. Previously, users could view real-time trading data from TradingView on index funds like the S&P 500 and some company shares using Twitter's "cashtags" feature. By searching for a ticker symbol and inserting a dollar sign in front of it, users can see price information from TradingView via an API.
With the eToro partnership, Twitter SCashtags will be expanded to cover a broader range of instruments and asset classes. You can click on a "view on eToro" button, which takes you to the eToro site, where you can buy and sell assets on its platform. eToro uses TradingView as its market data partner.
etoro’s CEO, Yoni Assia, said in an interview with CNBC that Twitter users have been engaging more with the platform over the past three years and educating themselves about the markets. The partnership, he added, will allow them to reach new audiences and better connect the brands of Twitter and eToro.
The partnership marks a rare business deal for Twitter since Elon Musk took over as CEO after buying the platform for $44 billion last year. Musk has made it his mission to turn Twitter into a "super app" that offers users a range of services such as instant messaging, banking, and travel. In China, internet giant Tencent offers payments through its WeChat messaging app. Musk changed Twitter's corporate name to X Corp after merging with a shell company with that name, highlighting his ambition to turn the firm into a super app.
The concept of "Fintwit," or financial Twitter, has become popular, with many people using it to find breaking news and updates on stocks and other assets. Twitter added pricing data for $Cashtags in December 2022. Since the start of 2023, there have been more than 420 million searches for Cashtags, with the number of searches averaging about 4.7 million a day.
eToro, founded in Israel in 2007, is an online brokerage that lets users buy and sell stocks, cryptocurrencies, and index funds. Among its most popular features is a function that allows people to mimic the trading strategies of other users. The company has more than 32 million registered users across Europe, Asia, and the United States.
While Musk's actions have spooked advertisers, with many brands leaving the platform in light of concerns that its content moderation standards would slip, he said that "almost all" advertisers had returned to the app. Stellantis and Volkswagen, which paused advertising there, said they do not yet plan to resume advertising.
Assia said he worked with the same team at Twitter on the stock market data tool that he had worked with on previous partnerships with the company. While he didn't have any contact with Musk directly, he joked that after having met Warren Buffett and Bernard Arnault, who are among the world's richest men, a meeting with Musk was inevitable.
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