The mobile payment processor, Square Cash App, has now enabled users to buy, sell, and trade with Bitcoin. This includes all regions except the state of New York, Hawaii, Georgia, and Wyoming. Square’s Point of Sale (Pos) system will allow users to accept Bitcoin and no additional fees will incur for either purchases or incoming payments.
There’s not a cap on selling, but vendors receiving Bitcoin can only receive up to $10,000 of the cryptocurrency per week. Square assesses the most accurate price from the determined mid-market value in which merchants and customers can exchange services via Bitcoin. CEO of both Square and Twitter, Jack Dorsey, tweeted the announcement yesterday with a link to a scroll-down story line explaining the background of Bitcoin and invites customers to start trading on their Cash App.
Instant buying (and selling, if you don’t want to hodl) of Bitcoin is now available to most Cash App customers. We support Bitcoin because we see it as a long-term path towards greater financial access for all. This is a small step.
We also made this! https://t.co/z3u0liDNk4
— jack (@jack) January 31, 2018
Is Bitcoin Good for Square’s Business?
Although this approach is still in its ripe stage of development, Square tested the waters on Bitcoin before launching a full-blown crypto integration. Late last year in November, Square selected three million users to buy, sell and trade Bitcoin with the Cash App. This was done after customers expressed a growing interest in using Bitcoin on Square’s platform. Within a week after the announcement, Square’s value increased by $1 billion. Dorsey and others at Square believe that their most recent announcement, now allowing access to Bitcoin for all users, will reap similar results for the mobile app.
Square Following in the Footsteps of Robinhood
On Thursday, January 25th, the free stock trading app, Robinhood, announced they would allow users to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum with no fees attached. This is a major blow to similar platforms such as Coinbase that charges 0.1% to 4% in exchange fees. Although Bitcoin and Ethereum will be the only allowed cryptocurrencies for trading, Robinhood users can monitor market value of other digital currencies as well. Co-founder Vlad Tenev told Tech Crunch:
We’re planning to operate this business on break even basics and we don’t plan to profit from it for the foreseeable future. The value of Robinhood Crypto is in growing our customer base and better serving our existing customers.
Bitcoin is Reaching its Limits…Literally
Despite the trend of service providers and financial institutions embracing the block chain and Bitcoin, the supply of its currency is running out. The Bitcoin protocol allows users to mine 21 million coins in total and as of January 13, 2018, only 20% of Bitcoin was left for potentially entering the market. More than 16,800,000 Bitcoin has been mined, and although theoretically the supply can always be increased, it’s designed to stop at 21 million to avoid problems with sustainability. This presents a challenge for platforms such as Square that must take into account the inevitable digital scarcity of Bitcoin and how that will impact not only their network but the market at large.
RushPRNews Now Accepting Bitcoin
RushPRNews, a PR Wire run by the AH Marketing Group is now accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment. RushPRNews launched in 2005 by Anne Howard, is an online PR wire specializing in social media and news outlet distribution. It is listed by Google News and Bing News.
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