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:

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:

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:

He also explained how this new division of Square would be different from the existing division Square Crypto:

On June 4, Dorsey made several interesting comments about Bitcoin at the Bitcoin 2021 conference, which was held in Miami, Florida (4-5 June 2021).

Here are a few highlights from Dorsey’s conversation with Alex Gladstein (who is the Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation) at a session called “Baking the Unbanked”:

  • “Bitcoin absolutely changes everything.“
  • “I don’t think there’s anything more important in my lifetime to work on.“
  • “Whatever my companies can do to make it accessible to everyone is how I’m going to spend the rest of my life… If I were not at Square or Twitter, I would be working on Bitcoin… If it needed more help than Square or Twitter, I would leave them for Bitcoin… But, I believe both companies have a role to play.“
  • “I don’t think there is anything more enabling for people around the world.“
  • “We don’t need the financial institutions that we have today… We have one that is thriving, that is sound, that is owned by the community and that is driven by the community, that has this incredible and amazing consensus that always manages to do the right thing over time. It’s noble, and it’s so rare and so unique. Anything that we can do to build it and protect it, we’re down to do.“

On the same day, Dorsey also tweeted about Square’s intention to build a hardware wallet for Bitcoin:

Then, on July 8, Jesse Dorogusker, Hardware Lead at Square, confirmed that his team was indeed going ahead with the creation of the Bitcoin hardware wallet mentioned by Dorsey in June and that the purpose of this product was to make Bitcoin custody “more mainstream.”

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.