Image source @ Visual China
Author | Chenglin Pua (Malaysia), Editor | Yu Baicheng
Following Facebook's announcement of changing its name to Meta, in December 2021, U.S. mobile payment giant Square announced that it would change its name to Block. The renaming Block reflects that the company has expanded beyond payments over the past few years, and on the other hand, it also hints that it will bet more on areas based on new technologies such as blockchain in the future.
In this article, 01 Blockchain will comb through the views of Jack Dorsey, the helmsman behind Square's name change, who founded Twitter and Square.
Who is Jack Dorsey
Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American tech entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter and a financial payments company Block, Inc. Founder and CEO of Square.
Dorsey became interested in software development at the age of 14, when the open source routing software developed is still used in taxi companies. Dorsey enrolled at Missouri University of Technology in 1995, transferred to New York University in 1997, and later went to California as a programmer. In 2000, Dorsey started his own company in Auckland, dispatching couriers, taxis and emergency services through the web. In July 2000, he came up with an idea for real-time presence communication and started Twitter. On November 29, 2021, Dorsey announced that he would resign as CEO of Twitter and be replaced by Parag Agrawal.
Dorsey and Jim McKelvey developed a small business platform in 2010 for accepting debit and credit card payments on mobile devices called Square (released in May 2010). This small square device can be connected to an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or Android device through the headphone jack and acts as a mini card reader that allows a person to swipe their card, select an amount to transfer to the recipient, and then sign their name to confirm. Square is also a system for sending paperless receipts via SMS or email and is available as a free app for iOS and Android operating systems. In September 2012, Business Insider magazine valued Square at $3.2 billion. On October 14, 2015, Square applied to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Dorsey owns 24.4% of the company. On December 1, 2021, CEO Dorsey officially changed the Square company name to Block, Inc. As of December 27, 2021, Block's market capitalization reached $77 billion.
Block's stock price movements
Opinions on blockchain
The "The Word" one-day summit was held on July 21, 2021, and the world's richest man and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, former CEO Jack Dorsey of Twitter, and Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Investment, attended and held dialogues.
Dorsey shares his exposure to the blockchain world and his thoughts. He said he had been interested in cypherpunk before and that he was aware of the predatory nature of the internet, and that Bitcoin's potential to disrupt the existing payment system attracted him. He also said that he believes that he is now sparing no effort to promote Bitcoin, as if it is in the early stage of the birth and development of the Internet.
Dorsey believes that our current monetary policy and monetary system have unnecessary costs and trust and attention consumption. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is trustless, and anyone can pass source code verification without being controlled by a single company, bank, or country. He gave an example at the meeting that he had actually encountered. An Ethiopian girl tries to set up her own Didi (car-sharing company) in Ethiopia. But the main obstacle the girl encountered was that Ethiopia currently did not have a perfect digital payment system, and Bitcoin could perfectly solve this problem.
In addition, Dorsey hopes that himself and the Block company he founded will help Bitcoin further promote the development of decentralization in the world. He also hopes that Bitcoin will be able to improve the basic level of society by improving it.
He also expressed his love for Bitcoin at the summit. He said that if he doesn't work on Twitter and Block, he will work in the Bitcoin space. It can be seen that he is a complete Bitcoin fan. In addition, well-known singer Cardi B once asked Dorsey on Twitter whether Bitcoin would replace the US dollar, and Dorsey replied that he would.
Dorsey tweeted
Thoughts on Internet 3.0
On December 21, 2021, Dorsey tweeted: "Users don't actually own a Web3 product, the actual owner of Web3 is the venture capital firm (VC) behind the project and its limited partners (LPs), and Web3 is inseparable from the mechanisms and rules they set." Ultimately, Web3 will be a centralized entity with different tags. This tweet caused some dissatisfaction from the blockchain industry, especially the blockchain top capital a16z, and then they debated "Web3 and its dominance".
Dorsey tweeted: "Who does Web3 really belong to?" ”。 A16z then replied to Dorsey's tweet that Web3 is mainly open source, belongs to users, and has very few parts owned by the agency. Dorsey later tweeted: "A16z wants to be a huge media empire, not to be Gandhi. ”。 His underlying meaning may be that a16z wants to control Web3 rather than liberate Web3. Dorsey then went on to tweet, "In the world of Web 3, VCs are the problem, users are not the problem. ”
This online insult mainly revolves around whether the dominance of Web3 belongs to users or VCs. Both sides of the debate are the strongest representatives deeply involved in Web2 (founding Twitter) and Web3 (investing in many related projects). In addition, Musk echoed Dorsey's argument that the concept of Web3 sounds "garbage."
Musk tweeted
Andreessen Horowitz (also known as a16z, registered as AH Capital Management) is a privately held U.S. venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Andreessen Horowitz invests in early-stage start-ups and mature growth companies. Its investments span the mobile, Crypto, gaming, social, e-commerce, education, and enterprise IT (including cloud computing, security, and software-as-a-service) industries.
Since 2009, a16z has invested in Internet giants such as Facebook, Groupon, Skype, twitter, etc., and has successfully withdrawn from the listing of some companies to make profits, and is a dazzling investment star in the Internet era. And when many venture institutions have not paid attention to the blockchain, a16z has entered the crypto range very early. In 2013, a16z raised a $25 million (about 160 million yuan) series B funding from crypto exchange Coinbase. After Coinbase went public, a16z's early investment paid off handsomely. In addition, a16z has also set up a blockchain investment fund a16z Crypto. The projects invested by a16z Crypto cover almost all crypto tracks such as public chain, DeFi, and NFT.
This scolding can be said to be caused by the different ideas of the representatives of the old era and the possible "new era". Who web3 belongs to, only time to give us the answer. But the views of the industry can also make us enlightened, perhaps Web3 is really difficult to completely belong to users.
Twitter accepts Crypto tipping and NFT trading
On September 23, 2021, Twitter announced that it has partnered with Strike, a Crypto wallet company based on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, to use String's API platform to launch a new feature called Tips, allowing Twitter users to use Bitcoin to tip their favorite content creators, and Twitter will not charge any fees for both the sender and receiver of the tip.
Twitter previously only supported users to tip in traditional fiat currency, which is the first time Crypto tipping has been introduced. Twitter also announced that there may be new Crypto-related features in the future, allowing users to verify and display their NFT collections on Twitter's platform.
Previously, Dorsey auctioned his first Twitter tweet in the form of an NFT for $2.915 million (about 18.57 million yuan).
In response, Esther Crawford, a product executive at Twitter who builds content creator functionality, said that Twitter's creators are increasingly interested in adopting related software and applications running on the blockchain. Twitter hopes to help creators participate in the development of a decentralized internet on Twitter. Twitter thinks Crypto is still in its infancy, but they're the way forward.
The NFT market ushered in explosive growth in 2021. As of December 28, 2021, the NFT market traded $286 million over the past week.
NFT market data for the past week ended December 28, 2021 Source: Nonfungible website
Square was renamed Block to focus on crypto
On December 1, 2021, CEO Jack Dorsey officially changed the Square company name to Block, Inc. The Block name itself refers to the technology behind encryption, namely blockchain. Block announced in a tweet that it is rebranding and combining the company with its software, The Cash App.
Twitter of Block's renaming
According to Block's Twitter message, Block will also merge with music and video streaming platform Tidal. In response, Dorsey said, "Block is a new name, but our goal of empowering the economy remains the same." No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help improve the economy."
The Cash App (formerly Block Cash) is a mobile payment service developed by Block Corporation. The Cash app allows users to transfer funds using the mobile app. As of September 2021, the Cash App service has over 70 million active users. Since January 2018, the Cash App supports Bitcoin trading.
Enter the market to buy Bitcoin
Block has bought Bitcoin between October 2020 and February 2021. On October 10, 2020, the company purchased 4,709 bitcoins, worth a total of about $50 million, an investment that accounted for almost 1% of the company's total assets at the time. On February 24, 2021, Block again bought about 3,318 bitcoins for $170 million, with an average price of $51,200. After the two transactions were combined, the cost of a single bitcoin was about $27,407.
The company has said in a press release that Crypto is an economic enabler and can provide the world with a way to participate in the global monetary system, which is in line with the company's purpose. Amrita Ahuja, Block's Chief Financial Officer, said: "Bitcoin has the potential to become a more ubiquitous currency in the future, and as its utilization continues to grow, we intend to learn and engage in a more compliant way. For a company that is moving towards a more inclusive future product, this investment is a key step down the road. ”
In fact, as early as 2019, Block set up an independent team, Block Crypto, dedicated to contributing to bitcoin open source work. Block has even launched a nonprofit organization, the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), to encourage crypto innovation and open access to existing patented crypto products. This series of moves to support Crypto has brought great rewards to Block. Block allows consumers to use the Cash App for consumption and storage of Bitcoins. Block's Bitcoin revenue also grew from $516.5 million in 2019 to $4.75 billion last year.
Block's Cash App continues to grow Source: The Block
The news of Block's purchase of Bitcoin also drew comments from Thaler. Seiler commented on Block's news on Twitter: "Bitcoin is a good reserve asset, and I really admire Block's team for leading the way. ”
However, as Bitcoin experienced a downturn between April and August, Bitcoin assets on Block's books began to lose money. On May 15, Block released its 2021 Q1 financial report, after recording a $20 million loss on the related bitcoin investment, Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja said that at present, Block has no plans to further buy bitcoin. In addition to this, he also mentioned the carbon footprint of the Bitcoin network, saying that this needs to be solved in the future.
Ahuja said that the market value of Bitcoin held by Block had risen to $472 million, but recorded a loss of $20 million on Bitcoin investments at the time of the earnings report. The $220 million spent on the purchase of Bitcoin accounted for 5% of the company's cash balance.
Bitcoin is still highly volatile to this day. Although its returns are very impressive overall, its "roller coaster" price action is not something that market investors are happy to see, which will affect Block's stock price. Bitcoin's unpredictable trajectory makes Block's overall market cap difficult to predict. In addition, Block is still in a high-speed development stage. The losses caused by the purchase of Bitcoin are all unbearable for Block. This also led to Block's statement at the earnings conference after recording a loss that it had no plans to buy bitcoin further.
[This article was originally published in ChainDede, authorized to be published by Titanium Media App, Author: 01 Blockchain]