X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, is exploring the use of stablecoins, specifically Circle’s USDC, to pay royalties to influencers who post content. The information comes from a source familiar with the plans, who noted that discussions between the two parties are ongoing; the source also works with several other social platforms testing stablecoins to pay influencer commissions. A media representative for X has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The context aligns with X overhauling its entire creator compensation mechanism. Its long-running Revenue Sharing program is being phased out, making way for the Original Content Rewards Program, a new system described by the company as designed to “reward creators who bring original ideas, expertise, reporting, creativity, and commentary to X.”
With stablecoins, the obvious incentive lies in cross-border payments. The total market capitalization of this asset class now exceeds $300 billion, making it a fast and cheap international transfer channel for everyone from small businesses to multinational corporations moving funds between subsidiaries. For a platform with creators spread across the globe, payouts in USDC help bypass a chain of banking intermediaries and foreign exchange conversion fees in individual countries.
This is also not an unexpected move within Musk’s ecosystem. SpaceX has already used stablecoins to collect cross-border payments from Starlink customers in emerging markets. Earlier this year, Musk hired crypto veteran Benji Taylor, formerly the head of design at Coinbase’s Base, as design lead for X with responsibilities spanning both xAI and SpaceX, right as the X Money payments component takes shape.
If the negotiations materialize, this would mark one of the largest cases of introducing stablecoins into mainstream social media cash flows: not traders buying and selling, but millions of creators receiving monthly income in a USD-pegged stable currency.
Important note: at the time of writing, this remains a plan under discussion; X has not made an official announcement, and it is not yet clear at what scale it would be rolled out.