Mizuho Bank: Musk's X Money Could Disrupt US Payment Market and Challenge PayPal

April 16th — Mizuho Bank analysts said in a Thursday report that X Money, the financial feature from Musk’s X platform, could disrupt the U.S. payments industry but may face regulatory hurdles for its crypto integration plans. In a client note, analysts Dan Dolev and Andrew Jenkins wrote that X Money is positioned as X’s financial infrastructure layer, aiming to integrate instant messaging, bank deposits and business transactions — similar to the super app models of WeChat Pay or Alipay. With X’s 500-600 million monthly active users (MAUs) and Musk’s background as a PayPal co-founder, “X Money has the potential to shake up U.S. payments,” they added. On the regulatory front, the analysts flagged two key potential obstacles: 1) New York’s proposed “CRYPTO Bill” would criminalize unlicensed virtual currency operations in the state, raising the compliance threshold for X’s future crypto plans; 2) The “Clarity Act” could restrict non-bank platforms from offering user yields, potentially blocking X Money’s planned 6% annual percentage yield (APY) on cash balances. The analysts called the timing of this yield product’s launch “particularly sensitive.” Mizuho also downgraded PayPal (PYPL) stock to “Neutral,” noting PayPal and its Venmo app face the most direct substitution risk because X is targeting the same peer-to-peer (P2P) transfer and digital wallet entry points. This week, X also rolled out “Cashtags,” a new feature letting users view financial data for stocks and crypto directly in their timelines.