Twitter CFO Ned Segal Believes It Does Not 'Make Sense Right Now' to Invest in Bitcoin

Twitter is not planning to invest any of its assets into cryptocurrency, at least not anytime soon.

By Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee | Updated: 17 November 2021 17:16 IST

Twitter CFO Ned Segal Believes It Does Not 'Make Sense Right Now' to Invest in Bitcoin

Photo Credit: Pexels/ Karolina Grabowska

Twitter’s CFO seems reluctant to suggest investing in crypto

Highlights

Ned Segal says Twitter prefers investments in less volatile assets
Twitter's investment policies don't allow crypto investments
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is an ardent Bitcoin supporter

Twitter's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ned Segal has stated in an interview that investing in crypto "doesn't make sense right now" due to extreme market volatility and the industry's lack of accounting rules. Segal noted that in order for Twitter to invest in crypto companies and related avenues, the social media giant would have to change its current investment policies, which currently only permit the company to hold assets that are more stable in nature like securities on its balance sheet.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Segal points towards a common concern about crypto's volatility among finance chiefs at Twitter, claiming price swings to be one of the biggest reasons the company doesn't use crypto for their corporate investments.

In fact, finance departments across multiple corporations based out of the US have so far raised the issue of the need for carving out specific accounting regulations and systems for crypto assets. Industry giants have even approached the Financial Accounting Standards Board or FASB, a private standard-setting body that develops and issues financial accounting standards for companies within the US, to set some ground rules on how to treat crypto assets, to lay down the rules on how to treat crypto assets.

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While Twitter's CFO seems reluctant to invest in crypto, Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has enthusiastically embraced the world of digital assets. In March, Dorsey turned his first tweet, the first-ever tweet on Twitter, into an NFT. He sold these through a marketplace named Valuables for a sum of $2.9 million (roughly Rs. 21.5 crore) to Bridge Oracle CEO Sina Estavi. In addition to experimenting with NFTs, Dorsey is also a self-proclaimed 'Bitcoin maximalist'.

Twitter may not be directly investing in crypto yet but has announced it was setting up a blockchain team led by seasoned blockchain engineer Tess Rinearson to "explore ways to incorporate decentralized technologies into our products and infrastructure". The first focus area for the team will be to grow decentralised apps (dApps) for creators to manage virtual goods, currencies, and ways for their fans to support their community. Rinearson hinted that her team will then try and look to crypto tech to augment identity, community, and ownership on Twitter.

Twitter, back in September, implemented a method to tip creators with Bitcoin via the Lightning network and suggested that they're experimenting with ways to verify NFTs used as profile pictures.

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Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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