20 October 2023
In the next three days, our team at Bitcoinist will cover xDay 2023, an event organized by MultiversX in the Palace of Parliament, Romania. Formerly known as Elrond, the project rebranded in 2022 to focus on the Metaverse, one of the hottest trends in crypto.
During the event, the head of product for MultiversX’s native “SuperApp” xPortal, Sergius Biris, unveiled new features to expand the ecosystem. The project aims to onboard new users to the network by providing social interactions, a bridge with other blockchains, and more to compete with Elon Muk.
xPortal Goes After Elon Musk’s Ambitions
Since last year, when Musk acquired Twitter (rebranded as “X”), the entrepreneur has progressively tried to turn it into something more. The social media app allows users to receive tips, subscribe to their favorite content, and interact with non-fungible tokens.
These features highlight the relevance for users to operate with a single hub. MultiversX and xPortal want to compete with Elon Musk by providing users access to these and other features announced during the conference, such as gamification, access to the metaverse, and NFTs to provide a “multifaceted digital experience.”
In contrast with X and Musk’s attempts, the team behind xPortal believes they have a critical advantage: their product is live and has over 1.5 million users already transecting and interacting with the MultiversX ecosystem.
Moreover, MultiversX has a vision to remove all friction from onboarding their ecosystem. Thus, xPortal announced a new fiat to crypto on and off-ramping capability and a feature enabling users to swap their tokens.
For European users, xPortal will enable peer-to-peer fiat payments with the traditional banking system, SEPA and SWIFT, earlier next year. During the conference, Biris stated:
The features launched today, most notably the debit cards, were a long time in the making. Today’s launch elevates xPortal from a crypto wallet to a financial super app. We thus created a bridge to an interconnected future where the lines between crypto, fiat, and emerging technologies like AI dissolve, bringing an unparalleled user experience.
The new features also included tools for developers and creators to leverage the MultiversX ecosystem. The xPortal app already allows them to launch their products for users to download quickly, similar to Apple’s Appstore and Google’s PlayStore.
Turning Web3 And Crypto Into “Money”
The conference has been conducted under a key vision: users want to leverage the technology, so crypto projects need to focus on security, scaling, and making accessible products. Rather than “Web3” or “Web4,” xPortal is about turning crypto into “money” available for anyone.
Sergiu Biris, Head of Product at xPortal, spoke to us during the event in an exclusive interview and shared the project’s vision:
They have to be able to do anything, whether it’s crypto or fiat, they don’t have to think about Blockchain is this, blockchain is not money. We are trying to dissolve those barriers between crypto and fiat because in our vision, money, it’s just money. And that’s why we want to make it easier for anyone to do whatever they need in terms of financial needs through the app.
Cover image from MultiversX, chart from Tradingview