Social media platform X is rolling out a brand new Handles Market that permits customers to bid on inactive usernames, a transfer that would reshape how digital identification and on-line branding are valued.
At present in beta, {the marketplace} lets customers be part of a waitlist for upcoming deal with drop occasions, request handles by their Premium subscriptions and browse eligible inactive accounts. The corporate described it as a “resolution to redistribute handles which might be now not in use,” obtainable solely to paying subscribers.
In response to TechCrunch, uncommon handles may promote for wherever from $2,500 to over $1 million, relying on their reputation, character size and cultural relevance. Premium+ subscribers can submit free requests for “precedence” handles, whereas others might buy “uncommon” handles instantly.
The initiative comes as X continues to hunt new income streams past promoting. It additionally faucets into the rising marketplace for Web3 property, the place digital identifiers, like domains or brief usernames, are handled as types of on-line actual property with actual market worth.
In response to business trackers, X has an estimated 557 million lively customers as of early 2025, although the corporate hasn’t disclosed what number of inactive accounts exist or what number of handles may very well be made obtainable by {the marketplace}.
Nonetheless, the launch highlights a broader shift in how social media identification is being monetized, with usernames themselves now rising as standing symbols and potential funding property.
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X and the emergence of Web3 social identities
Amid the continuing debate over digital identification, blockchain-based naming programs are rising as a well-liked use case. Decentralized area providers such because the Ethereum Identify Service (ENS) and Unstoppable Domains permit customers to register human-readable names that hyperlink on to their crypto wallets, changing lengthy and complicated pockets addresses with easy identifiers.
These programs give customers a stronger sense of possession over their on-line identities, an concept that mirrors the push for digital self-sovereignty throughout Web3.
Whereas X’s new Deal with Market doesn’t take a decentralized strategy, it depends on comparable themes of digital identification as an asset. The platform has lengthy been a hub for the crypto and blockchain group, making X a pure intersection between conventional social media and rising Web3 identification developments.
As Cointelegraph not too long ago reported, X has additionally served as a platform for activist traders, together with one who used the location to advocate for an overhaul of Polygon’s tokenomics, a proposal that in the end acquired favorable suggestions from the group.
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