X Money ra mắt trước thềm, Musk đã tháo dỡ trọng tài trước

Original Author: Ada, TechFlow

On February 7, 2025, four young men walked into a federal office building in Washington, D.C.

They belonged to DOGE, Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency." Their destination was the headquarters of the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), the agency responsible for overseeing all digital payment products in the U.S., including Apple Pay, Venmo, Cash App, and the soon-to-launch X Money.

According to Bloomberg, the DOGE team initially received "read-only" access. But late Friday night, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought sent an email requesting broader data access for DOGE. Ninety minutes later, Vought was appointed acting director of the CFPB.

By Sunday, the CFPB was a skeleton. Funding was frozen, activities suspended, and nearly 90% of its staff faced termination.

Just nine days earlier, X had announced its partnership with Visa.

Nine days. From announcing its entry into the game to dismantling the referee, it took only nine days.

The Compliance Marathon vs. the Nine-Day Blitzkrieg

In 2013, Coinbase registered with FinCEN as a Money Services Business, becoming one of the first crypto companies to proactively embrace federal regulation. That year, Bitcoin was still under $200, and the entire industry's market cap couldn't buy a Manhattan apartment.

The next decade was a compliance marathon. Coinbase obtained money transmitter licenses in 49 states and territories, with bond requirements ranging from $1,000 to $500,000 per state and net worth thresholds from $5,000 to $2 million. Applying for New York's BitLicense was particularly grueling, requiring quarterly financial reports and annual independent audits. Coinbase's compliance framework was built around three core pillars: regulatory registration, operational transparency, and proactive engagement with financial regulators, spanning over 100 countries.

But the lawsuits still came. In 2023, the SEC sued Coinbase for operating as an unregistered securities exchange. The company was forced into a protracted legal battle. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the SEC "failed to adequately explain its reasoning for denying the rulemaking petition," a half-victory. But what truly made the lawsuit disappear was the 2024 U.S. election. Coinbase and the crypto industry's super PACs spent over $130 million on campaigns, with Coinbase alone contributing $75 million. In February 2025, newly appointed acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda dismissed the lawsuit against Coinbase, unconditionally, with no fines, and barred from re-filing on the same grounds.

Ten years of compliance, one lawsuit, $75 million in political donations. That was the price Coinbase paid to be deemed "legally operating."

PayPal took a different path, but it was equally expensive. In August 2023, PayPal launched its stablecoin, PYUSD, issued by Paxos Trust Company, which is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). PYUSD fully complied with the GENIUS Act's requirements for 100% reserve backing and monthly public attestations. Moreover, every expansion to a new blockchain (from Ethereum to Solana to Stellar) required NYDFS approval. In December 2025, PayPal claimed PYUSD was "the largest federally approved U.S. dollar stablecoin."

These were the rules. To enter the U.S. financial market, you had to get licensed state by state, clear hurdles with one regulator after another. Coinbase took ten years. PayPal spent hundreds of millions on its compliance infrastructure.

X Payments LLC also got licenses. As of May 2025, it held money transmitter licenses in 40 states. On the surface, everything was compliant.

But the gap between superficial compliance and substantive regulation is vast.

On November 21, 2024, the CFPB finalized a rule subjecting large digital payment apps processing over 50 million transactions to federal oversight, similar to the regulation of traditional credit cards and bank accounts. This rule directly covered X Money. Six days later, Musk posted on X: "Delete CFPB."

Three months later, DOGE entered the CFPB. Another three months later, the Senate voted to repeal the CFPB's digital payment oversight rule. On April 9th, the House followed suit.

Coinbase spent ten years, $75 million, and a Supreme Court-level lawsuit to prove its legitimacy within the rules. Musk used one tweet and nine days to dismantle the framework itself.

The Cards Held by the Referee

Dismantling a regulatory agency is already outrageous. But the story gets even more absurd.

The CFPB isn't just a "watchdog"; it holds data.

In 2021, to assess consumer protection risks in payment technology, the CFPB issued compulsory data orders to Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, PayPal, and Square (now Block). These companies submitted vast amounts of confidential business information, including product strategies, internal operational data, and compliance records. In subsequent years, the CFPB launched investigations or enforcement actions against several of these companies, including PayPal and Cash App.

This data still sits in the CFPB's databases.

The DOGE team was granted access to "all non-classified databases," including sensitive bank examination records and enforcement records. According to Bloomberg, DOGE employees began accessing systems on the same day they entered CFPB headquarters, without having completed the CFPB's required privacy, cybersecurity, and ethics training.

Former CFPB Chief Legal Officer Seth Frotman testified before Congress: "He has obtained information not only about consumers but also about competitors."

Former CFPB Chief Technology Officer Erie Meyer recalled five young DOGE team members wandering through the secure executive suite, trying to enter locked offices. She resigned the next day.

Consider what this means. A new player about to enter the payments market got the medical records of all its major competitors before even launching. Product strategies, operational weaknesses, regulatory issues, non-public enforcement information.

Representative Maxine Waters put it more bluntly during a hearing: "Beyond accessing the consumer data of millions of Americans, Musk can now illegally steal sensitive commercial information from other competing U.S. companies."

Legal scholar Tim Wu described this level of data access as "god-tier," stating it provides a "massive competitive advantage" over companies in the same field.

What would happen if a crypto exchange founder did the same? SEC investigation, FBI raid, CEO in prison. This isn't hypothetical. FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years for misappropriating customer funds.

The difference: SBF committed crimes under the rules. Musk operates above them.

The Backdoor in the GENIUS Act

If dismantling the CFPB was the "destruction," then the GENIUS Act was the "creation." However, this creation came with a backdoor.

The GENIUS Act is the U.S. stablecoin regulatory framework signed by Trump. It establishes the basic framework for stablecoin issuance, including reserve requirements, disclosure rules, and regulatory jurisdiction.

But the problem lies in a specific clause.

In an open letter to Musk dated April 14, 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed out that the GENIUS Act contains a "suspicious exemption clause" allowing private commercial companies like X to issue stablecoins without going through some of the approval processes and safeguards required for publicly traded commercial companies.

Warren's question was pointed: Did Musk or his agents participate in lobbying or influencing this exemption clause? Because during the drafting and debate of the GENIUS Act, Musk served as a senior advisor to the President while also leading DOGE.

In other words: a person about to issue a stablecoin sat in the rulemaker's seat while a favorable exemption clause was written into the stablecoin bill.

Compare this to PayPal's PYUSD. Issued by Paxos, fully regulated by NYDFS, requiring 100% reserve backing and monthly third-party audit attestations, with approval needed for every chain expansion. Yet, the draft CLARITY Act considered prohibiting "payment stablecoins" from generating yield, directly targeting PYUSD's 4% rewards program.

And X Money? It advertised 6% APY on deposits, partnering with Cross River Bank, a bank previously penalized by the FDIC. Warren questioned in her letter: "In an environment where the federal funds rate is 3.5%-3.75%, how exactly will X Money and Cross River pay 6% yields? Through high-risk investments, intrusive data monetization, or a gimmick?"

FDIC Chairman Travis Hill had already clarified in March that under the GENIUS Act framework, stablecoin user deposits are not protected by FDIC insurance.

PayPal spent two years complying with the GENIUS Act, issuing monthly attestations, waiting for approvals for each chain. X Money got a tailor-made fast track before even launching. This is unfair competition.

The Weight of Rules

In April 2026, X Money entered early public access. 600 million monthly active users, partnership with Visa, 6% APY, and no federal oversight from the CFPB.

That same month, Coinbase just received conditional approval from the OCC to establish Coinbase National Trust Company. From registering with FinCEN in 2013 to getting the national trust charter in 2026 – thirteen years total.

Also in April, the CLARITY Act's probability of passing the Senate was 50-50.

The crypto industry's regulatory narrative for the past decade can be summed up in one sentence: Give us rules, and we will follow them. The premise of this sentence is that the rules apply equally to everyone.

But when someone can open a backdoor for their own company while dismantling the enforcement agency, and prepare for launch armed with competitors' confidential data, how much weight is left in the word "rules"?

Warren's deadline for Musk's response was April 21st. As of this writing, Musk has not publicly responded.

And X Money is already live.