Bluesky is making its move. The social network just launched cashtags and LIVE badges as downloads surge nearly 50 percent, riding a wave of users fleeing X over an AI deepfake scandal. The timing is strategic, the momentum real, and the bigger question looming: can feature drops actually keep people around?
Bluesky just rolled out two new features that signal the social network is trying to turn momentum into staying power. Users can now add a temporary LIVE badge to their avatar when streaming on Twitch, while cashtags - dollar signs followed by stock ticker symbols like $AAPL - give the platform a way to compete with X's popular stock discussion community.
The timing matters. Bluesky's download numbers tell the story of why these features are arriving right now. According to market intelligence firm Appfigures, daily iOS downloads in the U.S. typically hover around 4,000. But from December 30, 2025 through January 6, that climbed to 19,500 total installs. Then from January 7 through January 14, downloads hit 29,000 - a 49 percent jump in a single week.
What triggered the surge? X's deepfake disaster. California's attorney general opened an investigation into xAI's Grok chatbot after users started weaponizing it to generate non-consensual sexual imagery of real women and sometimes minors. The scandal went viral, sparking broader conversations about the platform's moderation and safety, and suddenly Bluesky became the obvious alternative.
Capitalizing on crisis is a playbook social networks know well. When Facebook faced privacy backlash, Signal saw millions of new installs overnight. When Elon Musk took over Twitter, power users flooded Bluesky. But history shows that initial downloads don't always translate to retained users.
The cashtags feature is borrowed from proven playbooks. Stocktwits, the stocks-focused social network, introduced the concept and now boasts over 10 million users. Twitter (now X) adopted cashtags in 2012 and they became one of the platform's most useful features for finance communities. By bringing cashtags to Bluesky, the team is essentially saying: we know stock discussion is a draw, come do it here.
