X to Launch Handle Marketplace, Prices Rare Usernames Up to Seven Figures

X is rolling out its long-promised handle marketplace, permitting Premium subscribers to assert inactive usernames by way of a two-tier system that costs essentially the most coveted handles at as much as seven figures.

{The marketplace}, accessible solely to Premium Plus and Premium Enterprise subscribers, splits dormant handles into Precedence and Uncommon classes.

Precedence handles—full names, multi-word phrases, or alphanumeric combos like @JohnSmith or @Lisa35—are free to request however include strings hooked up.

Cancel your Premium subscription, and X yanks the deal with again after a 30-day grace interval.

Uncommon handles function in another way. Brief, generic usernames like @Pizza, @Tom, or @One will price anyplace from $2,500 to over $1 million, relying on what X determines is their cultural significance and demand.

In contrast to Precedence handles, customers who buy Uncommon handles get to maintain them even when they cancel their Premium subscription.

Nonetheless, don’t go loopy eager about turning into a handle-flipping magnate. “Handles acquired by way of the Market are non-transferable,” X stated. “Promoting or shopping for handles exterior the platform isn’t allowed and should result in account suspension.

General, X frames the initiative as fixing a long-standing frustration. {The marketplace} prevents the chaos of open deal with releases, the place bots traditionally snatched fascinating names inside seconds, in keeping with firm supplies.

Customers who need a particular deal with not presently listed can add it to a watchlist and obtain notifications when it turns into obtainable.

The transfer formalizes what has existed underground for years. Unofficial marketplaces for Twitter handles have operated because the platform’s early days, however X by no means profited from these transactions.

Nonetheless, on this case, as an alternative of merely shopping for a brand new account, customers pay for the fitting to alter their username. In so doing, they protect their Followers, who’re merely migrated to the renamed account.

“Your earlier deal with is frozen and unavailable to others,” X says on {the marketplace}’s web site. “Sooner or later, we might provide redirect choices for choose accounts at a further price.”

This feature isn’t but applied.

Research on this phenomenon revealed that simply 27 monitored accounts had been capable of generate virtually half one million {dollars} by merely performing some deal with flipping. Now the corporate controls each provide and pricing of its digital actual property.

This is not Musk’s first try at monetizing dormant accounts. In December 2022, shortly after buying Twitter, he introduced plans to unencumber 1.5 billion inactive usernames.

By November 2023, it was reported that X was privately soliciting patrons at a flat $50,000 charge. In April 2025, researchers prompt Verified Organizations may bid for handles beginning at $10,000.

So what modified?

The underside line, apparently. X is searching for income past promoting, which has declined sharply since Musk’s takeover. Betting that unique entry to coveted handles will drive subscriptions amongst manufacturers, influencers, and collectors isn’t a loopy concept.

Critics argue the system creates a digital caste construction, particularly as a result of it forces customers to maintain their Premium subscriptions with the intention to get pleasure from the advantages of getting a selected username. The implementation turns usernames into leases somewhat than everlasting digital property for many customers.

And questions on transparency persist. X hasn’t disclosed the way it determines which accounts qualify as inactive, nor how authentic house owners may problem or deal with seizures.

The corporate took the @x handle from photographer Gene X Hwang in 2023 with out compensation, merely notifying him that the corporate was claiming it.

Degens may also recall how the Gemini CEO Cameron Winklevoss “ruthlessly took” the deal with @Cameron from a crypto miner.

“I’ve been an OG to Twitter, I made @Cameron when Twitter got here out. I’ve owned the deal with for properly over 10 years,” Cameron Asa, the unique proprietor, told Decrypt in 2020. “I actually have finished nothing unsuitable to this platform, and the little man at all times will get thrown beneath the bus.”

We’d attain out for remark, however X has a coverage of not responding to queries from the press.

How will X be pricing these treasured handles?

Who is aware of. We tried to start out the paperwork to purchase https://x.com/decrypt, however all we bought was a spot on the waitlist.