Lorenzo Valente, Director of Digital Asset Research at ARK Invest, stated that Elon Musk’s decision to include Benji Taylor as Lead Designer for the X platform could provide important signals about the company’s future strategic direction.
According to Valente, Taylor’s background points to much more than just a typical fintech user experience (UX) development role. Taylor previously rose to prominence as the founder of Family, a self-custody-focused cryptocurrency wallet project that was later acquired by Aave. During that time, he held a product management role, and in 2024, he joined the Base team as Head of Design.
Valente argues that this career path does not reflect a vision limited solely to traditional financial technologies, stating that the possibility of crypto-based solutions being included in X’s product roadmap is increasingly strong. Specifically, the integration of crypto wallets, on-chain payment systems, and even decentralized finance (DeFi) applications into the platform is considered a possibility.
According to the analyst, Musk’s choice of someone like Taylor, who has deep experience in the Web3 and DeFi ecosystem, could accelerate X’s goal of transforming from just a social media platform into an “everything app” offering financial infrastructure.
*This is not investment advice.