US payment giant "Block" focuses on Bitcoin

In a recent letter to shareholders, Jack Dorsey, founder and CEO of Block (formerly Square), spoke about the company's future plans for Bitcoin. The statement focused on three key aspects that the company wants to focus on when dealing with the most important cryptocurrency of all.

"Why the hell are you all spending so much time on Bitcoin?"
We get asked this question a lot. We want to use this quarterly letter to answer it.
^{Jack Dorsey at the beginning of the letter}

A few days ago, Dorsey and Block also announced that the company is now regularly buying Bitcoin as a kind of savings plan with some of the surplus money - Blocktrainer.de reported. Block has been investing 10 percent of the gross revenue from the company's Bitcoin products in BTC since April of this year. Prior to the launch of the savings plan, Block had already purchased Bitcoin with 220 million US dollars and already achieved an increase in value to over 570 million US dollars. In the quarterly letter mentioned above, the CEO explained that although the company's commitment to Bitcoin appears larger than it actually is, a corresponding Bitcoin strategy had already been drawn up in 2018.

We believe that the world needs an open money protocol that is not controlled by a single entity. We believe that Bitcoin is the best and only candidate to be that protocol and ultimately become the native currency of the internet.
^{Excerpt from the quarterly letter}

There are three key aspects of this strategy that Block is focusing on. First, Dorsey emphasized that the company is aiming to make Bitcoin usable as a daily means of payment in order to realize the vision of Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. Secondly, Block is focusing on making Bitcoin more secure, especially in terms of custody. Thirdly, the company wants to increase the accessibility of Bitcoin to enable a wider audience to take advantage of decentralized money.

In order to fulfill its strategy and achieve its own goals in the Bitcoin sector, Block has launched several concrete initiatives and is continuously working on new projects to improve the use and security of Bitcoin. One of the measures, for example, is the development of a decentralized Bitcoin mining system. In this context, Block has developed a special chip for mining and plans to launch both this chip and a complete mining system on the market. The approach aims to overcome the challenges faced by mining companies and further advance the decentralization of the Bitcoin network.

Another important project and probably Block's best-known product is the "Cash App". This payment app is widely used in the US and is comparable to its better-known competitor in Germany, PayPal. For some time now, the company has enabled users of the Cash App to buy, sell and even send and withdraw Bitcoin. The app has proven to be extremely successful and is helping to make Bitcoin more accessible as a means of payment and promote its use in everyday life. The Cash App has contributed significantly to the company's gross revenue growth in recent years and is an integral part of Block's strategy to establish Bitcoin as an everyday payment method.

To improve the security and accessibility of Bitcoin, Block is also working on the development of Bitcoin wallets and other security solutions. For example, the company recently launched the "Bitkey Bitcoin Wallet", which aims to make the storage and use of Bitcoin more secure and user-friendly. Although the wallet is now available, in comparison with other wallets, such as BitBox02, Bitkey honestly loses out in terms of security.

In the letter to shareholders, Dorsey also explained why the company is pursuing a "Bitcoin-only" strategy and not focusing on other cryptocurrencies.

Why Bitcoin and not all the other "cryptos"? Satoshi developed Bitcoin to solve a very specific problem related to payments that the world has since recognized as extremely valuable. Most other projects either don't solve other problems or are just trying to be a speculative commodity. We benefit from an open money protocol and that's what we want to build on. [...]

In the past and going forward, our investment in Bitcoin goes beyond technology; it is an investment in a future where economic empowerment is the norm. This commitment is driving our business into new areas, opening up new opportunities for our customers and securing lasting value for you, our shareholders.
^{Excerpt from the quarterly letter}

Michael Rihani, the Bitcoin Product Lead at "Cash App", has today launched a survey at 𝕏 to find out which of the three aspects the community considers to be the most important and which point the company should focus on the most. As things stand, the people who have voted attribute the greatest importance to suitability for everyday use. Around 60 percent of all votes want Bitcoin to be easier to use in everyday life.

It remains to be seen whether Block will be influenced by the survey and adjust its own focus accordingly. The fact that such a resource-rich company with a market capitalization of over 40 billion US dollars is intensively involved with Bitcoin at all and provides capacities for the further development of an open source money system is a massive gain in any case.