Nikita Bier says crypto has had a rough year, hints at building something new as X Money launch nears

Nikita Bier may have just told crypto what X is about to ship.

“Crypto has had a rough year. Maybe we should launch something to fix it,” X’s head of product wrote Tuesday in a post that pulled in more than 677,000 views within hours.

Elon Musk confirmed last month that X Money will go live in April with peer-to-peer transfers, bank deposits, a debit card, and cashback rewards, built with Visa and a licensed subsidiary in more than 40 U.S. states.

What lies beneath that stack remains an open question.

Public details describe a fiat-based product, with no confirmed crypto functionality. But X has stopped short of explicitly ruling out blockchain rails, and the product’s design overlaps with areas crypto has focused on for years, including instant payments and yield on dollar balances.

Three weeks ago, X hired Benji Taylor, Aave’s former Chief Product Officer, and Head of Design at Base.

Bier said at the time of the hire that he had tracked Taylor’s work for years and had pushed to bring him on, calling one of his past products among the best-designed he had seen.

But whether that overlap becomes competition or integration remains unresolved.

X could keep its payments stack entirely fiat, competing with crypto for users seeking yield and convenience. Or it could eventually incorporate crypto rails behind the scenes, using blockchain infrastructure without exposing users to it directly.

For now, Bier’s post lands in that ambiguity. Crypto may be waiting for its next catalyst, but it is no longer clear whether that catalyst will come from within the industry or from platforms building around it.