Twitter receives money transmitter licenses in three US states

Michigan, Missouri and New Hampshire have granted money transmitter licenses to Twitter Payments LLC, leaving 47 U.S. states yet to weigh in.

Twitter Payments LLC, a subsidiary of Elon Musk’s Twitter social network, appears to have received its first money transmitter licenses after Michigan, New Hampshire and Missouri approved the company’s applications. 

NEWS: Twitter has finally secured its first money transmitter licenses in several US states. pic.twitter.com/gziiRgelYU

— T(w)itter Daily News  (@TitterDaily) July 5, 2023

A money transmitter license allows a company to provide transfer services or payment instruments. This differs from a license to conduct sales in that it’s meant to provide consumer protections for businesses that facilitate the transmission of money from one party to another, not just the purchase of products and services.

It remains unclear at this time exactly what offerings will be on tap if and when Twitter Payments eventually rolls out. The company applied for licenses in all 50 U.S. states, and there’s no clear timeline for the approval process. 

Related: Meta’s Twitter rival Threads to launch July 6, but will the crypto community budge?

Even assuming a clean sweep of approvals, Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino have yet to offer many details. People familiar with the company’s plans indicate that Twitter Payments will initially offer fiat currency transaction services, perhaps similar to those provided by Stripe, Venmo and PayPal.

In the future, the company reportedly intends to open the platform to cryptocurrency services. It’s also been rumored that Twitter Payments plans to offer its own token with a project called “Twitter Coin” and that the company will even unveil its own wallet.

As Cointelegraph previously reported, all of this falls under Musk’s promise that Twitter would “do lots of dumb things,” another way of saying the company would adhere to the modern tech mantra of “move fast and break stuff.”

Some of the changes have come across as polarizing at best. Twitter tweaked the site’s rate limiter — a function that limits the number of posts a user can read in a given period — to a mere 500 posts per non-paying user.

The site also recently restricted the ability to view posts to those who were logged into their Twitter accounts. This change was quietly rescinded on Wednesday, July 5, per reports from TechCrunch and Engadget.