Elon Musk has bought Twitter for $44 billion. The dogecoin-loving richest man in the world will be in charge of what he calls the "de facto public town square".

Now, I've loved Twitter since its launch. In fact, I think they've rarely put a foot wrong. So this news concerned me — how will Elon Musk change Twitter? And will any crypto or Web3 elements come into play?

Join me as I speculate — nothing of this might come true, or maybe I can give Elon some ideas. Who knows? Let's start with the most important of them all:

The edit button

Since announcing his interest in buying Twitter, Elon has been pushing a narrative around creating an edit button. It appears over 73% of his 92 million followers (or at least the ones that care enough to vote) agree that the edit button should be implemented.

Personally, I think it could work but there are too many loopholes to be addressed. That’s why if it is implemented, there must be a way to track changes. Otherwise, we could have a scenario where Vitalik retweets a pro-Ethereum post, just for it to be edited to something malicious.

Crypto scams are already rife on the platform. I'm sure everyone reading this has either been tagged in or seen verified Twitter accounts being hacked and then shilling an NFT scam. Imagine you don't have to hack a verified Twitter account to reach a big audience. Instead, you only need to hack 32 follower @BitcoinLover332, who has been retweeted by a big player in the space.

If the edit button makes crypto scams more common than they are now, the platform will definitely take a turn for the worse. Atleast for the crypto crowd. Even without the edit button, the next course of action for Elon Musk should definitely be to…

Tackle the crypto scam problem

We've covered some of these in the past but, honestly, they've gotten worse since we published this — the previously mentioned verified Twitter phishing scam is the worst.

If Elon is as bullish on crypto as we think he is, this should be one of his main priorities. Scams affect newbies, veterans, and outsiders. It stunts the growth of the space and is just generally not cool.

Apart from tackling scams, sometimes people (with good reason) doubt the integrity of the platform. Understandably, many have scars from the FB debacles. The next point might be the answer to this.

An Open-source algorithm

Let’s go back to things Elon has openly considered — an open-source algorithm. Meaning anyone could go into the code and see how they are pushing content onto us. This is something I am 100% behind.

An open-source algorithm would be a positive move, not only for Twitter but the entire internet and social media space. It could put pressure on other platforms to follow suit, giving more information and, in turn, power to the user. Over 82% of Elon’s Twitter followers agree.

In fact, even the co-founder and ex-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, had suggested the idea that users should be able to choose which algorithm they use. Again, this gives more power to the user and I'm fully behind it.

An open-source algorithm would also deter any malicious or intrusive features in the algorithm. We'd know if they're listening to everything we say, even when the app isn't open. We'd know if they're using their algorithm for a political edge (i.e. Facebook and the Great Hack doc). We'd be able to take back control as users, that would feel great.

Keep NFT verified profile pictures

Now for something Elon doesn't like… NFT verified profile pictures. The billionaire responded to the announcement of this feature back in January saying, "this is annoying".

It's unclear if he hates the concept or if he just hated that Twitter was wasting supplies on this rather than addressing scammers (he mentioned the latter in a reply).

But if he has issues with both the concept and poor use of funds, it's time he realized the importance to the NFT community that this moment had. It validated a community that has been borderline bullied by the rest of popular culture.

At the end of the day, it's a small gimmick that simply adds to the importance of NFTs. You don't even have to be an NFT lover to appreciate this function. I'd rather all the fake NFT accounts be exposed instead of letting them flex things they don't own. Speaking of flex…

Turning the bird into a Shiba Inu

What do you think? Bird → Shiba Inu and Twitter → Woof. Could be fun right?

Okay, that's probably not going to happen. As much as he loves his Dogecoin and owns a Shiba Inu called Floki, I think changing the whole brand may be a bit too much.

However, it could be funny if he pulled this one, masked as a April fools prank. Imagine the mass hysteria that would cause. The price of Doge, Shiba Inu, and Floki Inu would all pump. Is that what they call market manipulation?

Might be worth keeping away from this idea then Elon. He’s had enough trouble with the SEC.

Tipping people with more crypto

Did you know you can tip people on Twitter? Me neither, it's a feature that came into effect last year.

Currently, you can only pay in fiat or Bitcoin (yay!). But I'd like to see some more cryptocurrencies available.

Of course, I expect to see Elon's favorite Doge added to this list. It'd be cool to see a stablecoin endorsed by Twitter as well as some alternative Layer 1 projects like Ethereum, Cardano, or Avalanche.

Monetizing Tweets

While on the topic of making money from Twitter, Elon is reportedly considering being able to earn money from your viral tweets.

Uhhhh, this is a big no from me. Part of what is great about Twitter is that a lot of it is filled with shitposts. If you can start making money from views, the purpose of tweeting will change. You'll see those annoying spam meme accounts come back in fashion. And, individuals will spend all day trying to make the next viral tweet.

To me, it'll ruin the "de facto public town square" element of Twitter that Elon loves.

Turn it into a DAO

Finally, all crypto lovers are screaming for this one: MAKE IT A DAO!!! I think this is a move that even the non-crypto audience could get behind.

For those not familiar, a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) will allow people holding a Twitter governance token to vote on the future of the platform. Sort of turning social media into a direct democracy.

In this article, we've already linked to a couple of Twitter polls from Elon that will apparently have important consequences. What if we didn't have to trust that he'll consider these polls once he's in power? That’s what a DAO would do. It’d be set up so that the result of the poll would be acted upon.

The neat thing with DAOs is that anyone with governance tokens can submit 'proposals' — essentially a suggestion. So @BitcoinLover332 could submit a proposal to change the Twitter logo to a Shiba Inu and if enough people vote in favor, we'll see change.

Of course, we've never seen a DAO operate on this scale before. It could lead to issues. The voting system would be hard to establish. Would everyone with a Twitter account be given governance tokens for free? Or must you invest? Once you have a token, how do you make it easy to vote for people who aren't familiar with crypto? Then, what threshold(s) must be met for votes to be passed? I'm not sure — I'll leave that to the billionaire.

Another caveat: the DAO would also hold a lot of power, making it a big target for hackers. DAOs are often open-source, making them easier to hack — such as the infamous "The DAO". We can't have something similar happen with Twitter.

Okay, I'm sounding against this idea — I'm not. I really want this to be implemented but only if it works. If it's installed without these considerations we could see a historical failure of blockchain technology. Resulting in public opinion being rugged and crypto mass adoption becoming less likely. None of us want that.

So Elon, if you're reading this, it'd be great to see some blockchain elements implemented into Twitter. But be careful, we don't want the public hating crypto even more than it already does. Oh also, why are you reading Hedgeblog? Don't you have more important things to do? Till next time!

Check out writer Ryan S. Gladwin's website, follow him on Twitter, and of course, subscribe to the weekly Hedgehog newsletter!