Block (Company, fka Square)
Basics
- Fka Square (2-12-2021):
"Square Changes Name to Block, Reflecting CEO Jack Dorsey's Bitcoin Endeavors. Square Crypto will be renamed Spiral."
Square Crypto will be renamed Spiral.
- Publicly traded payments company.
- From Forbes Blockchain 50 (19-2-2020):
"In the third quarter of 2019, Square generated $148 million in revenue from fees charged to users who paid with bitcoin. Just revealed: a service that lets people instantly send and receive crypto payments. Click here to read more."
- From Forbes Blockchain 50 (2-2-2021):
"Two years ago, Square started letting users of Cash App, its peer-to-peer money transfer and digital banking service, buy Bitcoin. The app has grown to 30 million active users. Square generated $1.6 billion in revenue and $32 million in gross profit from Bitcoin in the quarter ended September 30. In October, Square said it had invested $50 million, or 1% of its own total assets, in Bitcoin."
Compliance
- Has a BitLicence since 2018.
Cash App
- Square owned mobile payments network.
Spiral
Basics
- Fka Square Crypto, the division that focuses exclusively on bitcoin, announced (19-9-2019) three new hires to work on open source projects. They call it their: ‘Bitcoin Dream Team’
- According to another company tweet Thursday, Square Crypto is still “deciding what our first project will be,” adding: “There’s no project we won’t consider, as long as it improves or proliferates bitcoin.”
- "Known for (5-3-2020) its popular CashApp and just wrapped up a final quarter of more than $177 million BTC moving through its platform."
- Won a patent for a crypto-related RTP system.
Grants and Funding
"Square Crypto Launches Developer Funding for Bitcoin Core, Lightning Network. The first announced grant went to Bitcoin Core developer Jon Atack. “Jon’s been doing Core dev work for almost a year. He’ll still be doing Core dev work, but now he’ll be getting paid for it,” Square Crypto tweeted.
The second instance was awarded to Tankred Hase, a German software engineer and “UX-focused bitcoin dev whose plans include simplifying self-custody of smaller amounts of bitcoin, creating a public key server that makes it possible to text sats and developing a React Native module to make it easy for JavaScript applications to use the LDK.”
“To date, we’ve supplied grants to BTCPayServer and ZmnSCPxj,”"
- Is funding Bitcoin Core. From Decrypt (3-12-2020):
"Gemini today announced the launch of a $200,000 Bitcoin development fund. Called the Gemini Opportunity Fund, $150,000 of the money, in Bitcoin of course, will go straight to Brink, a London non-profit fellowship program to sponsor Bitcoin developers. The developers will work with John Newbery, Brink’s co-founder and executive director, and a Bitcoin Core contributor. Mike Schmidt, another Bitcoin core contributor. Square, the Human Rights Foundation and Kraken are among other donors. Kraken also donated $150,000. So far, the only fellow is Gloria Zhao, a Bitcoin Core contributor fresh from University of California, Berkeley, where she sat as president of its blockchain club."
- According (24-2-2021) to the payment processor’s press release, the company added 3,318 BTC to its treasury for $170 million.
Team
- Jack Dorsey; head/founder
- Steve Lee; team leader and former Google product director (2020 & 2021)
- Arik Sosman; Facebook and BitGo alum
- Valentine Wallace; Lightning Labs alum
- Jeffrey Czyz; Google alum
Team
- Keith Rabois; ex COO
