Bitcoin Reinvention by Jack Dorsey and Block Inc.

Block, Inc., founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and former CEO, is an innovative financial technology firm with subsidiaries that have a growing connection to Bitcoin. The company’s subsidiaries include payments apps, merchant tools with Bitcoin integrations, bitcoin mining hardware development, open-source software development, decentralized financial protocol for peer to-peer marketplaces, and even an self-custody hard wallet. 

Previously known as Square founded in 2009The company began integrating Bitcoin in its technological offering as early as early as 2014 via Cash App — its most famous subsidiary — allowing merchants to accept bitcoin payments through the app. In 2021, Square Inc officially rebranded to Block IncThe company has doubled down on Bitcoin. It also affirmed that the Bitcoin Blockchain is a key part of its vision for the future. Square has become a division of Block Inc., which focuses mainly on payment terminal technology. Block is now the largest payment terminal provider in the world. 8,584 BTC on its balance sheet Bitcoins are worth almost $1 billion, and the average price per bitcoin is $30,405 dollars. 

Block’s subsidiaries, investments and other companies are all directly connected with Bitcoin or Blockchain systems, such as Cash App. Bitkey, Proto. Spiral. TBD. and Tidal. They are all advancing Bitcoin adoption in various industries and receive a growing amount of gratitude and influence from the Bitcoin Community. Jack Dorsey, a prominent Bitcoin donor and supporter of community projects has made a number of donations to Bitcoin nonprofits. OpenSats, which funds open source Bitcoin development and through which a great deal of Nostr — a Bitcoin-native social network protocol — has been bootstrapped.

Bitcoin Magazine has an exclusive interview. Mile SuterBlock’s product leader shared his vision of the future, and Bitcoin’s role. “We think Bitcoin achieves its ultimate destiny when it’s being used as everyday money. Just like Satoshi intended. I think that Bitcoin as a global financial infrastructure that everyone can access lets companies like Block operate in a much more global manner. And I think that payments are essential to maintaining the core properties that make Bitcoin unique and ultimately will make it win in the long run.”

Suter has provided exclusive quotes on the importance of these companies in helping to achieve hyperbitcoinization. 

Square

Square was launched in 2009. It is a POS system that allows businesses to accept credit card payments, manage inventory and payroll, as well as business loans. Four million sellers are served and processed $241 billion annually as of 2024Square has announced it will begin accepting Bitcoins from merchants in the United States. Bitcoin Vegas conference in 2025POS Hardware allows them to seamlessly accept Bitcoin.

The decision marks an important milestone in Bitcoin’s integrated with retail payment system, and establishes the missing tool in business to truly use bitcoin as a means of exchange. “On the Square side, we have over 4 million merchants in the U.S. with a full suite of point-of-sale, inventory, taxes, reporting, like the best in the business in terms of traditional payments processing. This initiative goes beyond just Bitcoin payments,” Suter said.

The door is now wide open for merchants who wanted to accept Bitcoin but couldn’t because they lacked the necessary tools. The vision goes beyond that. “And we’re going to be offering a full-stack Bitcoin banking suite specifically designed for small businesses,” Suter leaned into the trend that Bitcoin news is dominated by today, which is treasury firms and their strategies.

The tools will be available soon for companies to accept Bitcoin payments, and then put the funds directly into company treasury. This is an alternative option than selling bitcoin instantly in exchange for dollars. If they need liquidity, they are already able to put that bitcoin as collateral and get dollar-denominated loans straight to their bank account via companies like Unchained — though, without a doubt, Block is also moving in that direction for their clients. Suter also added that “one thing I love about this full-stack Bitcoin banking suite is that we’re democratizing access to Bitcoin treasury tools that were previously only available to large corporations. I believe that holding Bitcoin on your balance sheet shouldn’t just be a Wall Street luxury.”

Cash App

Block’s hyperbitcoinization engine is not complete without Cash App. It may be the best-known brand in the Block portfolio. In 2013, Cash App was introduced as a consumer digital wallet. 57 million active users in 2024Offers person-toperson payments, debit cards, Bitcoin and stock trading, as well as tax filing. Cash App’s revenue derived from bitcoin in 2024 was $10 billion. 62% the totalCharge 2% of the trade value.

Cash App is also the first payment app to incorporate Lightning, Bitcoin’s network of payments. Cash App is the most innovative app in the market, generating the highest bitcoin revenue publicly reported, but also operating the Lightning Network. 9.7% return. It isn’t some crypto-magic yield. This can only be accomplished by ensuring that bitcoin payments are extremely efficient and reliable. Suited pointed out that “to me, it’s proof that Bitcoin is already a functioning payment network, not digital gold. It’s more than that. And I don’t want to get too into the weeds here, but I can confidently say that we have the most talented set of Lightning engineers in the world working on these problems.”

Suter is ecstatic about Cash App’s Bitcoin Integration. “we’re super excited about Lightning’s role in making Bitcoin everyday money because that’s really, from a Block Inc. perspective, we believe that’s essential for Bitcoin’s future, Satoshi’s original vision, peer-to-peer electronic cash.”

Customers can not only buy bitcoins and send them via Cash App but they can also use an automated investment strategy, dollar cost average or DCA, that has mathematically been proven to work. one of the best investment strategies there are in bitcoin. 

Cash App combined with Square is what the tech world calls a “fly wheel,” A term that describes self-reinforcing cycles of business and consumer behavior. These loops can propel a company to greater heights, but are not always possible without a certain building block. With these two major integrations the Bitcoin payments vision dreamt of by early adopters over a ten-year period, but which has not worked well until now, could finally become reality. 

Bitkey

Anchored in the fundamental value proposition of Bitcoin — censorship resistance through individual liberty and self custody — Block has launched a new hardware wallet product called Bitkey. This device was designed for Bitcoin security using popular technology known as multisignature, which decentralize the passwords — private keys— needed to move the bitcoin to three different devices: the Bitkey hardware, a key stored for recovery in Block’s servers and a third key encrypted with the user’s credentials and stored on the user’s chosen Google drive account.

The Bitkey, launched globally in 2024, makes various design choices that depart from the way other hardware wallets in the industry function — the most primary and controversial difference being that it never shows private key material to the user. Bitkey, unlike other hardware wallets and self-custody crypto and Bitcoin apps, hides the key material from users almost completely. Instead, it gives them a variety of well-designed tools that allow them to securely secure, retrieve and pass on their bitcoin to loved ones. Suter stated that “we built Bitkey to expand who can safely self-custody. We — Bitcoiners — joke that you should onboard your grandma to self-custody, but I hear countless stories of that being true and people reaching out because the onboarding was so seamless.”

This device is a mix of alien and modern technology. Each unit has a mixed pattern and lights up when touched, as if it were alive. This is an innovative re-thinking of the concept of self-custody, born out of a deep critique It is important to consider the experience that users have with the Bitcoin seed backup method. While the design has been in the market for barely a year and no public data on sales numbers has been released, it will be interesting to see if they can break new ground into hardware wallet adoption — a metric historically poor for an industry so culturally defined by self custody.