TikTok Sold To Microsoft Or Twitter? What Would Benefit Bitcoin?
Last Updated on 14 August 2020 by CryptoTips.eu
US President Trump urgently needs a boost for the presidential election. In order to fire up his base, he recently announced that TikTok and WeChat, popular Chinese apps, would have until September 15 to be sold to an American company.
If it doesn’t, no more TikTok or WeChat in the US, Trump said. Since Prime Minister ModiĀ in India has already imposed such a ban on TikTok in his country, it is a threat that better be taken seriously.
WeChat problem for Apple in China
In fact, banning WeChat in the US, a company owned by Chinese Tencent, would actually pose a particular problem for Apple in China. The fact is that WeChat’s US operations make up only 2% of Tencent’s global sales, so they could live with a possible US ban. Furthermore, Tencent’s turnover has increased rapidly in recent years.
However, Apple’s sales of iPhones in China could plunged by a ban on putting Chinese apps on its phones. Apple is an American product and is therefore would not be allowed to placeĀ illegalĀ Chinese apps on its App store due to such a ban, at least that’s how tech review Cnet understood it.
Apple is risking a 30% drop in sales of their popular phones, because if the Chinese find they can no longer install Tencent or WeChat apps on their new iPhone, a switch to Huawei or even Samsung can be expected.
Given the size of the Chinese market, this is a serious potential problem for Apple.
Two bidders for TikTok
Over to TikTok, the wildly popular video app.
In the last weeks, two bidders turned up for Tiktok (owned by the Chinese company ByteDance), or at least for TikTok’s US operations.
These are Microsoft, the computer giant of founder Bill Gates and CEO Satya Nadella, and Twitter, the social media app of CEO Jack Dorsey (who also runs the Square app, a company active in crypto payments).
Microsoft or Twitter? Who will win the ultimate TikTok battle? Advertising experts weigh in on the subject. https://t.co/X4aDV50YBE pic.twitter.com/xs8UiqfjvV
— Angela Johnson (@senden) August 12, 2020
Since TikTok is very popular with young people, and this is also the group that is very interested in crypto and Bitcoin, today we wonder who would be the best buyer.
Microsoft or Twitter
Microsoft has been getting a lot of criticism recently from its own employees for even considering the purchase of TikTok. No matter which company takes over TikTok’s US operations, you will always have a hard time developing further business in China, as President Xi Jinping’s administration isĀ not amusedĀ at Trump’s threat.
#Twitter or #Snap should buy TikTok. It will be much more aligned and productive match. https://t.co/UfqMiUXMvr
— Alexander Negelev (@negelev) August 12, 2020
The Seattle computer company has thousands of employees in China, who might find it a lot harder to do their jobs in the future. Furthermore, some Microsoft employees also think that an expansion into the world of social media is not such a good idea for a computer company.
The only crypto story we posted about Microsoft lately was one about how the Seattle company patented it to make blockchain from human movements. Conspiracy theories went completely off the grid on that one in these times of Corona.
Microsoft does of course have the money to buy TikTok, something that would cause a problem for Twitter. Although Jack Dorsey could easily find the necessary cash in Silicon Valley of course.
Vine redux?
Twitter, many analysts say, already had a video app called Vine. That went well for a while, but then went very wrong and now it is mainly seen as a bad former development for Twitter.
On the other hand, there are other stories of companies that made mistakes before they found success with a new business.
Four Years After Fluffing Vine, Twitter Interested In TikTok Purchase... https://t.co/9WuUXWwdaq pic.twitter.com/vwG7M1DnKr
— elbowz (@elbowz) August 12, 2020
The most famous example thus far is Google. Before Google transitioned to Alphabet Incorporated, it had a service called Google Video, which never seemed to take off. If Google had given up and abandoned video altogether, it would never have bought YouTube for $ 1.65 billion. That company is now the most famous video platform in the world and a major money machine for Google.
Dorsey and Crypto
Furthermore, for the crypto world, there is also the fact that TikTok can score well with young people, and they are the future buyers of Bitcoin.
Recently, a TikTok star called for a massive purchase of Dogecoin, which yielded very nice stories for a week and volume that rose 1900% for the small crypto. In the end, the whole Dogecoin story failed, but it is a nice sign of how massive attention can be garnered through the TikTok App.
And then there is the fact that Jack Dorsey is an important defender of crypto, and more specifically Bitcoin. Dorsey, suspected by some to be Satoshi Nakamoto, has already stated in the past that he sees Bitcoin as the universal currency of the future and also promotes crypto payments through his new company Square (something PayPal recently copied).
If the CryptoTips editors can choose who gets to buy TikTok, our vote goes to Twitter.