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On Thursday (July 15), Jack Dorsey, the American billionaire who is the co-founder and CEO of microblogging platform Twitter and the CEO of payments solutions provider Square, made an interesting announcement that provider further demonstration of his commitment to the success of Bitcoin and its ecosystem.
Square was founded in February 2009, or just one month after Bitcoin’s initial release. The three co-founders are Jack Dorsey, Jim McKelvey, and Tristan O’Tierney.
Four years after the launch of Venmo, PayPal’s peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payment solution, Square (whose founder and CEO is Jack Dorsey) launched a competitor called “Square Cash”, a beautiful, simple, and fun-to-use app, which got renamed to “Cash App” later.
Cash App, which is one of Square’s most popular products, allow a user to request money from and to transfer money to another user. Users can withdraw the money via a debit Visa card called “Cash Card” or by transferring it to a bank account.
Cash App started supporting buying and selling of Bitcoin (BTC) in mid November 2017 in a limited rollout; the feature was officially launched in late January 2018.
Here is a tweet from Dorsey announcing the news on 31 January 2018:
Instant buying (and selling, if you don’t want to hodl) of Bitcoin is now available to most Cash App customers. We support Bitcoin because we see it as a long-term path towards greater financial access for all. This is a small step.
— jack (@jack) January 31, 2018
We also made this! https://t.co/z3u0liDNk4
On 1 August 2019, Dorsey said during Square’s Q2 2019 Earnings Call “We love you, Bitcoin.”
On 8 October 2020, the official account of Square’s Investor Relations team sent out the following tweet to disclose the company’s recent investment in Bitcoin:
Today, @Square announced that it has purchased $50M in bitcoin. Square believes cryptocurrency is an instrument of economic empowerment and provides a way to participate in a global monetary system, which aligns with the company’s purpose. For more, visit https://t.co/HPhSMfVgac.
— Square IR (@SquareIR) October 8, 2020
According to Square’s press release, Square had “purchased approximately 4,709 bitcoins at an aggregate purchase price of $50 million,” and went on to say that Square “believes that cryptocurrency is an instrument of economic empowerment and provides a way for the world to participate in a global monetary system, which aligns with the company’s purpose.”
It also mentioned that this investment “represents approximately one percent of Square’s total assets as of the end of the second quarter of 2020.”
Square’s Chief Financial Officer, Amrita Ahuja, had this to say:
“We believe that bitcoin has the potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future. As it grows in adoption, we intend to learn and participate in a disciplined way. For a company that is building products based on a more inclusive future, this investment is a step on that journey.”
Well, earlier today, Dorsey revealed on Twitter that Square is creating a new division (with a name to be determined in the future) that has as its main goal the building of a Bitcoin-focused open developer platform that will make it easier to build decentralized financial services. He went on to say everything about this “new business” would be done in a completely open/transparent manner:
Like our new #Bitcoin hardware wallet, we’re going to do this completely in the open. Open roadmap, open development, and open source. @brockm is leading and building this team, and we have some ideas around the initial platform primitives we want to build.
— jack (@jack) July 15, 2021
He also explained how this new division of Square would be different from the existing division Square Crypto:
We’ll set up Twitter and github accounts soon and update this thread on where to find them.
— jack (@jack) July 15, 2021
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.