Square announced today that it purchased about 4,709 bitcoin at an aggregate purchase price of $50 million, as a trend emerges where publicly listed companies make space for bitcoin on their balance sheets.
In Brief
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Square purchased $50 million worth of bitcoin.
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The firm believes the crypto is an instrument of economic empowerment.
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Earlier this year, MicroStrategy invested $425 million in bitcoin.
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A trend for corporations to purchase bitcoin appears to be emerging.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the purchase represents 1% of the firm’s total assets, instantiating a trend among publicly listed companies like MicroStrategy to buy bitcoin.
The company said in a statement: “Square believes that cryptocurrency is an instrument of economic empowerment and provides a way for the world to participate in a global monetary system, which aligns with the company’s purpose.”
“We believe that bitcoin has the potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future,” said Square’s Chief Financial Officer, Amrita Ahuja. “As it grows in adoption, we intend to learn and participate in a disciplined way. For a company that is building products based on a more inclusive future, this investment is a step on that journey.“
Square has previously invested in bitcoin from a product, leadership, and innovation perspective, and today added this investment to the books. The firm launched bitcoin trading in 2018 with Cash App, which allows users to trade bitcoin. In 2019, the company formed Square Crypto, an independent team solely focused on contributing to bitcoin open-source work for the benefit of the community, and all who use bitcoin. Additionally, Square recently launched the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a non-profit organisation which encourages crypto innovation while also opening access to patented crypto inventions.
MicroStrategy invested $425 million bitcoin over a series of disclosures that pumped the stock’s value and revealed its CEO, Michael Saylor, to be a very vocal bitcoin advocate, or as other would say, an ‘altcoin minimalist’. In fact, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor went as far as to call out legendary Hedge Fund manager Paul Tudor Jones for not putting enough into bitcoin, saying: “If you actually dug into it to understand the technology characteristics that it’s smarter, faster and stronger than gold, you would realize that it’s probably a 100x to a 1000x better than gold.“
The question on everyone’s mind now is: which publicly listed company will invest in bitcoin next?
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