Musk Calls Most Crypto Scams as X Expands Crypto Market Feed

Elon Musk told an Oakland jury that most cryptocurrencies are scams, even as X expands a market-data product built partly around crypto trading.

The comment came during Musk’s civil trial against OpenAI, where lawyers questioned him about a 2018 proposal for the company to raise funds through an initial coin offering. According to New York Times reporter Mike Isaac, Musk said some cryptocurrencies have merit, but most are scams.

The remark landed the same week X rolled out a web version of Cashtags, a feature that turns stock and crypto tickers into clickable real-time charts and asset-specific feeds.

Musk’s Crypto Remark Surfaces in OpenAI Trial

Musk’s comment was tied to OpenAI’s abandoned ICO discussion, not X’s product strategy. His legal team has argued that he rejected the idea because it would have damaged OpenAI’s credibility, while OpenAI has pushed back on Musk’s account of events.

Still, the line stands out because Musk was one of crypto’s most visible public backers during the 2020 and 2021 cycle. Tesla bought $1.5 billion of Bitcoin in 2021, while Musk’s posts about Dogecoin helped turn the meme coin into one of the market’s defining speculative trades.

That public enthusiasm has cooled. Tesla sold roughly three quarters of its Bitcoin in 2022 and has not returned to the same level of crypto promotion since.

X Pushes Cashtags Beyond Mobile

X is moving in a different direction from Musk’s courtroom language. The platform is expanding Cashtags on web, giving users live charts and related posts for supported stocks and crypto assets.

The feature covers major crypto and equity tickers, including Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Coinbase and MicroStrategy. It fits X’s broader effort to become a place where users can follow markets, payments and financial commentary without leaving the app.

That creates a clear split. Musk is drawing a line between crypto projects he views as credible and the wider market he sees as full of scams. X, meanwhile, is building tools around the parts of crypto that remain useful to traders and finance-focused users.

Tesla Still Holds 11509 BTC

Tesla’s own balance sheet shows the distinction. The company no longer holds the full Bitcoin position it bought during the last bull market, but it has kept a remaining stack of 11,509 BTC.

That makes Musk’s position more selective than anti-crypto. Bitcoin remains on Tesla’s books, X is adding market tools, and Musk continues to treat Dogecoin as part of his public internet persona. What has changed is the broad endorsement that surrounded the 2021 cycle.

For crypto, the message is more uncomfortable than a simple rejection. Musk is not saying the category has no value. He is saying most of it does not deserve trust.

X Wants the Market Without the Scam Problem

The Cashtags rollout also comes as X tries to clean up crypto spam on the platform. Head of product Nikita Bier has previously said X was tightening rules around apps that rewarded users for posting, after incentive-driven crypto content flooded feeds with low-quality replies and AI-generated posts.
That context matters. X can build market tools for Bitcoin, Ether and public equities while still treating much of the long-tail crypto market as a risk to users.
Nakamoto Daily recently covered how crypto became X’s most-muted topic as AI slop hit Crypto Twitter, a sign that users are increasingly filtering out the noise around the sector.

Musk’s court comment fits that line of thought. Crypto still matters to X as a finance category, but the platform no longer seems interested in giving every token, promoter and engagement farm the same reach.