Square Crypto, the division of the publicly traded mobile payment company that focuses solely on Bitcoin, has just announced its first grant to help promote Bitcoin as an everyday currency. The company is giving $100,000 to the BTCPay Foundation to boost the foundation’s development of open-source software improving the security, scalability and fungibility of Bitcoin.
Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey unveiled Square Crypto earlier this year as a Bitcoin-focused initiative. The first grant for the foundation’s product BTCPay Server is expected to be one of many for Bitcoin developers. According to the announcement,
“BTCPay represents everything we love about open-source bitcoin projects. It exemplifies the ideals of our community and promotes adoption by letting merchants accept bitcoin, control their private keys, and self-validate their coins. It also creates powerful real world applications for bitcoin without sacrificing user experience or requiring trusted third parties.”
We’re giving a bunch of money to @BtcpayServer, a product that appears to be in direct competition with our mothership. It isn’t. Here’s why. #BH2019 #BalticHoneyBadger2019
— Square Crypto (@sqcrypto) September 14, 2019
The team adds,
“Everyone benefits from open-sourcing, often in ways that are intangible. And as bitcoin’s ubiquity increases, existing payments companies have to make a choice: adapt or be left behind. Square got where it is by embracing and adapting to change.
This isn’t an investment in a competitor, it’s an investment in the future of money — something that Square obviously has a stake in.
BTCPay normalizes thinking about what it means for a currency to be self-sovereign, while bridging the UX gap that has historically kept open-source projects from mass adoption.”
Square Crypto’s endorsement of Bitcoin represents support from one of the most high-profile tech brands – Square, developer of Cash App.
Speaking at Square’s earnings call conference in August, Dorsey highlighted the company’s rapid growth.
“The Cash App ecosystem continues to exceed our expectations. In just three years, Cash App revenue performed basically $0 to $135 million, excluding Bitcoin. We love you, Bitcoin. And we saw 3.5 million customers use Cash Card in June, typically using it to purchase multiple times per week.”
According to the earnings report, Bitcoin represented roughly half of Cash App’s total revenue of $260 million for the second quarter of 2019, with $125 million in BTC sales, nearly double the amount of its record first quarter.
