Twitter is building a cryptocurrency team to bring blockchain and crypto solutions to its platform

Twitter has always been the hotbed of all discussions around cryptocurrencies. If you seek an example, just look at the number of times a crypto coin or token's price has shot up after Elon Musk tweeted about it. It seems that the social media firm realises its importance in the space, as it has now promised to work on crypto and blockchain solutions for the platform.

The announcement comes through a new tweet by Tess Rinearson, the engineer who has joined Twitter to lead its crypto efforts. Rather than specifically working on cryptocurrencies, Twitter's new team will focus on the underlying solutions including blockchains and other decentralized technologies.

"As I build out the team, we'll be working to figure out what crypto can do for Twitter, as well as what Twitter can do for crypto," Rinearson tweeted on Wednesday.

The initial focus of Twitter's crypto team would be to explore ways in which Twitter can be used to support the creators' interest in decentralized apps. These apps can be used to manage virtual goods and currencies, and ultimately support their work and communities.

The Twitter thread by Rinearson mentions that the team will further work with the community to build solutions around "identity, community, ownership and more." An interesting proposition is to decentralise Twitter itself, i.e. to host it on a blockchain network rather than servers from other hosts like Amazon Web Services. Twitter eventually plans to stay ahead of the curve through its "decentralized" social media platform.

All of these efforts will be carried out by the Twitter Crypto team, in collaboration with bluesky, a budding initiative sponsored by Twitter. Of course, that will be a long-term goal, if Twitter plans to go that way. For now, the social media firm is expected to start its crypto journey with an option for Bitcoin (or other crypto) payments or NFT sales for creators.

Rinearson tweets that Twitter will be hiring for roles in engineering and product around this project. The team building has thus started with a nascent plan of action for now. Though Twitter's move in the direction is more of a boost to the world of cryptocurrency than to Twitter as a social media platform. With Twitter being one of the top technology establishments in the world, its trust on blockchain and cryptocurrencies establishes a much-needed legitimacy to crypto that is still questioned in many parts of the world.

As for how Twitter will embrace the technology, we will have to wait to know all its plans.