Twitter is testing payments in Ether; hacker managed to activate system

The beginning of the week was busy in the organizational structure of Twitter. First, company founder Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO after six years. The Indian Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief technology officer (CTO), takes over from Dorsey.

Less than 24 hours after Dorsey left, Twitter released a new feature that allows payments in Ethereum. The news was released through a video, but it is not yet available to the general public.

However, a Hong Kong hacker named Jane Wong has already managed to hack the functionality and enable ETH payments on her account. She told how she carried out the process and also what she thought of the novelty.

Payments in ETH

According to Wong, adding an ETH address to his Twitter tip button was easy. The hacker even recorded a video in which she reports the entire process. As recorded, the ETH option will be available along with PayPal, Venmo and BTC.

The hacker is known for being able to hack and use social networking services even before the official release. In the case of ETH payments, Wong exploited the functionality and managed to include his ETH address.

“The feature has been there since at least September, but I don’t think it’s widely available yet. I did my magic to add the address to my tip list. I tinker with the internal components of the Twitter app,” Wong said.

As the feature has not been officially released, little is known about it. One of the information is that, as in the case of BTC, the feature must be released first to iOS users. Then Android smartphones should receive the news.

It is unclear when (or even if) the company will formally launch the ETH tipping option. However, as proved by Wong, skilled hackers can already take advantage of this option. Twitter said it is evaluating Wong’s leak and intends to respond soon.

Dorsey’s departure frustrates maximalists

Interestingly, many BTC maximalists associated the leak of new functionality with Dorsey’s departure. The former CEO was known for his defense of the BTC and the release of features aimed at this cryptocurrency.

The new CEO was also criticized on the social network. This is because Agrawal would have already positioned himself in favor of relativizing the First Amendment, one of the main guarantees of freedom of expression in the United States.

“Our role is not to be tied to the First Amendment, but to serve healthy public conversation, and our movements reflect things that we believe lead to something in that direction. The kind of thing we do about it is focus less on thinking about free speech and more on how times have changed,” Agrawal said in 2020.

In other words, the future of Twitter’s conduct remains uncertain. But ETH users apparently have a lot to celebrate.