X's crypto trade button promise: third time's not the charm

The trade buttons themselves are not new information. Bier first teased in-app crypto trading on Jan. 11, a day after crypto accounts accused him of burying their posts, saying a version could arrive “as early as February.” February came and went. What actually shipped, on April 14, was Cashtags, X’s crypto and stock trading feature, for iPhone users in the US and Canada. It showed live price charts and let people search or paste token contract addresses. It did not let anyone trade.

Three days after that launch, Bier said as much himself: “X will not execute trades or act as a brokerage, but intends to build financial data tools and links.” Canadian users got a button that opened Wealthsimple, an outside brokerage, instead of a trade executed on X. Bier said Cashtags had “driven” roughly $1 billion in trading volume in its first few days, a figure that describes activity elsewhere, not orders filled on X.

The bigger change since January is not the product. It is Bier’s job. He stepped down as X’s head of product on Aug. 5, after 13 months in the role, saying it was “time to pass the torch and demote myself to my natural state: a poster.” He stayed on as an adviser. Tuesday’s promise, in other words, came from someone no longer running the team that would have to ship it.

Neither Bier nor X named a launch date on Tuesday. Whether trade buttons ship this time, and under whose product roadmap, is the open question the last seven months have not answered. For crypto traders, the repeated delay and the leadership change mean the feature remains a hope, not a timeline.