The Twitter CEO emphasized the opportunity to build decentralized Bitcoin financial services with Square’s new venture
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, revealed plans for a new Square initiative on Twitter last night. The company will launch an open developer platform focused on Bitcoin, designed to make it easy to create financial services that are decentralized, permissionless, and non-custodial. The project does not yet have an official name.
Dorsey has long been an advocate for Bitcoin and even added #bitcoin to his Twitter bio. At the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, he praised the cryptocurrency as a path to a fairer economy. Square already holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet, and Dorsey has reportedly considered adding Bitcoin to Twitter’s balance sheet as well.
Square provides financial and digital payment services, and its Cash App allows users to invest in stocks and Bitcoin. In fact, Cash App recorded $3.51 billion in Bitcoin revenue during the first quarter of 2021.
“How is this different from @SqCrypto?” Dorsey asked on Twitter. “Square does not direct @SqCrypto, it only funds them. They chose to work on LDK [Lightning Development Kit], and they’re doing an incredible job! TBD [the new, unnamed company] will focus on building a platform business and will release our work along the way as open source.”
Last week, Square also confirmed plans to build a hardware wallet to help bring Bitcoin to the mainstream. Dorsey first proposed the wallet in a June Twitter thread, suggesting it should offer “assisted self-custody,” be mobile-friendly, support Layer 2 solutions, and integrate with Cash App.
Jesse Dorogusker, Square’s head of hardware, confirmed development of the wallet a month later and outlined the product goals as: “Bitcoin first, global distribution, multisig to achieve ‘assisted self-custody,’ and prioritizing mobile use.”
Square’s approach to developing the new Bitcoin financial services platform will be similar. As Dorsey explained: “Like our new #Bitcoin hardware wallet, we will make this completely open. Open roadmap, open development, and open source.”
The team building the new platform will be led by Mike Brock, an experienced software engineer and Square’s Strategic Development Lead, who has been responsible for developing Square’s instant settlement features and its Bitcoin product.
Dorsey concluded by saying more information about the project will be released soon, including Twitter and GitHub accounts for the new company.