Block plans to launch bitcoin payments on its business technology platform Square, enabling merchants using the Square Point of Sale app to accept bitcoin payments directly through their Square hardware.
The company plans to begin rolling out this new, native Bitcoin For Businesses offering in the second half of the year and then extend it to all Square sellers in 2026, subject to regulatory approvals, it said in a Tuesday (May 27) press release.
“When a coffee shop or retail store can accept bitcoin through Square, small businesses get paid faster, and get to keep more of their revenue,” Block Bitcoin Product Lead Miles Suter said in the release. “This is about economic empowerment for merchants who like to have options when it comes to accepting payments.”
With Square’s integration handling the complexity behind the scenes, and the Lightning Network enabling near-instant settlement, customers will be able to pay with bitcoin by scanning a QR code at checkout, according to the release.
Bitcoin For Businesses builds upon Square’s Bitcoin Conversions features, which was launched in 2024 and allows qualified merchants to automatically convert a portion of their sales into bitcoin, the release said.
“We believe in an open, decentralized, fair, fast and low-cost money system for everyone, and that’s exactly what we want to bring to Square sellers,” Suter said in the release.
When the Block ecosystems Square and Cash App began rolling out Bitcoin Conversions in April 2024, the company said the feature would enable Square sellers to participate in a digital global monetary system by giving them the option to allocate between 1% and 10% of their daily sales to be transferred to their personal Cash App account and converted into bitcoin at the end of each day.
“According to direct feedback from Square sellers, many are interested in bitcoin and believe it presents a wide range of use cases, such as long-term savings and diversifying their businesses’ holdings,” Block said at the time in a press release.
Jack Dorsey, Block head, chairman and co-founder of Block, said during a November earnings call that the company is focused on making bitcoin more accessible and secure.
“We want to make it usable every day, by having an open protocol for payments on the internet,” Dorsey said at the time.
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