Elon Musk's Twitter rebrand sparks massive rallies in obscure crypto tokens with 'X' names
- Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X this week. It led to a price spike for some X-branded crypto tokens.
- One token saw a 1,200% rally after Musk's announcement, even though the project had shut down in May.
Opportunistic crypto traders are trying to ride the wave of attention being paid to Elon Musk's rebrand of Twitter.
After the billionaire CEO announced over weekend that his social media platform would be renamed "X," cryptocurrencies with X-related names spiked, and brand new tokens popped up on decentralized exchanges.
Among the new tokens are those that look more legitimate, as well as those that seem like the pump-and-dump ploys often seen in the sector. Traders, however, didn't seem to discern between the two, and were seen piling into anything branded with an "X" to capitalize on any potential profits.
One token, per CoinDesk, saw as much as a 1,200% spike in a 24-hour stretch after Twitter's rebrand — even though its associated project shut down in May.
Another token that saw a sharp rally, called "AI-X," sported a logo similar to Musk's company SpaceX. Then, there was one named "Deus X" — a phrase Musk tweeted this week — that saw a 2,600% jump, according to CoinDesk data.
On Sunday, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed Twitter's pivot away from the well-known bird branding.
"X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities," Yaccarino tweeted. "Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we're just beginning to imagine."
Meanwhile, earlier this month Meta's Mark Zuckerberg launched his own competitor to Twitter, dubbed Threads, which has the advantage of being able to bring on new users via Instagram. While a lot of hype surrounded the launch of Threads, its staying power will depend on its ability to attract advertisers to the same degree as Twitter, according to Morningstar senior equity analyst, Ali Mogharabi.
"As far as initial impressions, the timing of Threads is impressive, since it just followed Musk's latest restrictions on Twitter" he told Insider in a recent interview. "But whether all the disappointed Twitter users go to Threads and actually stay there remains to be seen."