Once again, fintech giant Square has shocked the Bitcoin industry with its latest earnings report; the company’s flagship product, the Cash App, sold $148 million worth of BTC in fiscal Q3 of 2019. This marks significant retail interest in cryptocurrency from Square’s American clientele.
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Crypto analyst Kevin Rooke pointed out that this is the sixth straight quarter of growth for this facet of Square’s business. Rooke also noted that Bitcoin revenues at Square are now growing by a jaw-dropping 244% year-over-year, despite the fact that BTC remains over 50% below its previous all-time high of $20,000.
Square customers bought $148 million of Bitcoin last quarter on Cash App!
That’s a 6th straight quarter of growth and 244% growth YoY.
TO THE MOON 🚀 pic.twitter.com/dplqYCwM3b
— Kevin Rooke (@kerooke) November 6, 2019
While $150 million may not sound like a large quarterly volume metric, analysts observed earlier this year that Cash App’s Bitcoin sales were absorbing a large portion of BTC emissions.
In fact, as reported by NewsBTC previously, Yassine Elmandrja, ARK Invest’s resident cryptoasset analyst, noted that if BTC sales “maintain current growth rates,” by the next halving event, “2 BTC will be purchased on Square Cash” for every one mined.
In other words, a single application could soon null all of the natural selling pressure of mined coins that Bitcoin faces every day. Of course, growth has slowed since Elmandjra’s analysis, but the point of BTC’s scarcity was made clear.
If BTC sales on Square Cash maintain current growth rates, then by the next Bitcoin halving (May 2020), roughly 2 BTC will be purchased on Square Cash for every new BTC that is mined. pic.twitter.com/GPxXhaGK15
— Yassine Elmandjra (@yassineARK) May 1, 2019
Making Bitcoin the Currency of the Internet
Considering the growth of Square’s cryptocurrency business, it should come as no surprise that the fintech firm is investing a fair chunk of change in building out an arm to work on crypto and blockchain.
Just last month, the firm completed the hiring process for its core group of developers for the “Square Crypto” project. The company also issued a large grant to an open-source Bitcoin payments product.
The reason: Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey thinks Bitcoin is the “best bet” to become the native currency of the Internet. On the matter of why Bitcoin has more potential than, say, Ethereum, Dorsey has remarked that the original cryptocurrency has “been the most resilient, it’s around for 10 years, it has a great brand and it’s been tested a bunch”.
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