Crypto Biz: Winklevoss slams Silbert, Twitter’s double-edged sword and more

Twitter’s plans to launch a payments platform took a big step forward this week as its subsidiary, Twitter Payments, received its first money-sending license in the United States states of Michigan, New Hampshire, and Missouri.

The company – reportedly building a solution with crypto in mind – is seeking to provide transfer services in all 50 US states, with further approval still pending and no clear timeline.

Like every business, Twitter is looking for new sources of revenue backed by its massive user base. At a Twitter Space event in 2022, Musk said he envisions enabling bank accounts to be linked to social media profiles, combining debit cards and money transfers. Its goal appears similar to that of the now defunct Diem – the failed global payments project from Facebook’s parent company, Meta.

For better results than the Meta project, Twitter relies heavily on the crypto tech community, but Musk is also at odds with Twitter Crypto. This week, the platform limited the reach of its content, citing “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation”. The decision is a blow to the crypto ecosystem, which relies heavily on Twitter to share information and reach new audiences.

“The reason I set a “View Limit” is because we are all Twitter addicts and need to get out of the house,” said Musk on the platform. The move could be a double-edged sword for Twitter’s payment plans.

This week’s Crypto Biz also explores Gemini’s battle with Digital Currency Group (DCG) over user funds, new banking tools for digital yuan, and OpenAI’s efforts to stop users from jumping over paywalls.

Winklevoss slams Silbert DCG — Not even SBF ‘capable of such delusions’

In an open letter published on July 4, Cameron Winklevoss blasted Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert for allegedly playing the victim card while owing $1.2 billion to Gemini’s 232,000 customers. Genesis DCG is the lender behind the Earn Gemini program, which promises depositors as high as 8% returns. It suspended withdrawals in November 2022 after FTX collapsed. “I’m writing to let you know your game is over,” said Winklevoss, explaining that professional fees have now “ballooned” to over $100 million at the expense of credit and earn users. Winklevoss has presented Silbert with an ultimatum: accept his company’s “best and last offer” or face lawsuits. The offer includes a $1.47 billion agreement, with the first payment due this month and the final payment due five years from now. Later, on July 7, Gemini filed a lawsuit against DCG.

Crypto-friendly DBS Bank launches a digital yuan transaction tool

DBS Bank China has officially announced the launch of its digital yuan merchant solution, which enables mainland businesses to accept payments in central bank digital currency (CBDC). DBS told Cointelegraph that the new service will allow its clients in mainland China to receive or collect digital yuan and have it automatically deposited into their yuan bank deposit accounts. At the end of 2022, there are 13.6 billion digital yuan in circulation, or about $2 billion. CBDC is currently accepted in 26 cities and 17 provinces across China, with adoption expected to increase as more provinces join the program.

Musk imposed a ‘value limit’ on Twitter, citing extreme ‘manipulation of the system’

Social media platform Twitter is temporarily limiting the number of posts users are allowed to read each day after seeing “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation,” according to Musk’s chief executive. The new rules temporarily limit verified accounts from viewing 10,000 posts per day, while unverified accounts and new unverified accounts are capped at 1,000 and 500 posts per day, respectively. The decision was heavily criticized by the crypto community, which relies heavily on Twitter to communicate and share information. The new rate cap has impacted the indexing and display of tweets on the Google search engine, causing more than 50% of Twitter URLs to disappear from the search index. Lower visibility of tweets on Google will also reduce the amount of crypto-related content originating from Twitter.

OpenAI paused the Bing ChatGPT feature, as users jumped paywalls

Search ChatGPT, a Bing-based search engine feature, has been temporarily disabled by OpenAI after a loophole that allowed users to bypass paywalled content. OpenAI may have acted on this issue in response to a Reddit post. In late June, members of the r/ChatGPT subreddit posted screenshots of an Explore session in which they asked the chatbot to “print text” links to paid articles from The Atlantic. In response, ChatGPT provides the full article without a paywall. The browser is currently in beta and available for ChatGPT Plus service subscribers.

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Source: Cointelegraph.com