Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter to X, Spurring Scores of Wannabe Tokens

Several tokens branded ‘X’ popped up on decentralized exchanges (DEX) overnight as Elon Musk-owned Twitter started dumping its iconic blue bird logo for an X symbol.

https://t.co/bOUOek5Cvy now points to https://t.co/AYBszklpkE.

Interim X logo goes live later today.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

Musk first tweeted about the forthcoming change over the weekend. Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed the rebranding on Sunday.

“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 said. “Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.”

In April 2023, when Musk merged Twitter into X Corp., he also registered X.AI Corp. as an artificial intelligence startup. The Twitter chief then established xAI, his own AI company to "understand the universe.”

Scores of X tokens have now appeared on multiple blockchain networks. These included new tokens claiming to have a proper roadmap for the coming months as well as tokens that are seemingly pump-and-dump schemes. One of them jumped as much as 1,200% over the 24 hours even though its project shuttered in May, suggesting low-cap traders were buying just about anything branded X in an effort to eke out a tiny profit.

Newer tokens were issued by opportunistic developers over the weekend following Musk’s tweets. One – called “AI-X” and with a logo identical to Musk’s space technology company SpaceX – jumped 10-fold. Another, named "Deus X” after a Musk tweet, spiked 2,600%.

Professional traders told CoinDesk that such euphoria exists because major tokens such as bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) are enduring periods of low volatility, forcing some market participants to punt on meme coins and low caps.

“Meme coins are huge parts of the crypto trading landscape, whether we like it or not,” James Wo, founder at crypto fund DFG, told CoinDesk at the heights of one such meme obsession. “While the biggest currencies like bitcoin and ether have very low volatility, it's only natural that traders will look for opportunities elsewhere.”

“Meme trading is a risky way to try to seek excessive return, but when it pans out, the upside can be very huge. So even in a bear market, some of the meme coins will have large up-swing, even if it's just short term,” he said.