Square Reports 600% Increase in Quarterly Bitcoin Revenue
Square CEO Jack Dorsey. Credit: Shutterstock
Square’s bitcoin business is continuing its rapid growth, with Q2 revenue 600% up year-on-year.
- Announcing Tuesday, the San Francisco payments company said revenue made from selling bitcoin to its Cash App customers in Q2 came to a total of $875 million – six times the amount in the same period in 2019.
- Square stresses it only takes a “small margin” selling bitcoin to customers, but Q2’s results still mean it made $17 million profit – 711% year-on-year.
- Square released its results ahead of schedule after someone gained “early external access” – it hasn’t provided any further details on what happened.
- Since Square first enabled bitcoin buying through its Cash App in November 2017, it’s grown to become a dominant part of the business.
- While bitcoin made up only 5% of its revenue at $34 million in Q1 2018, it came to $65.5 million in the same quarter in 2019.
- By Q4 2019, Square’s bitcoin revenue reached $178 million and $306 million in Q1 2020: $100 million more than the revenue generated from its fiat services.
- But Tuesday’s results represent one of the biggest increases in quarter-to-quarter revenue to date: the company attributes the rise to a surge in customer demand, better volumes as well as an increase in bitcoin’s circulating supply.
- Square excludes bitcoin revenue from its total figures, saying that incorporating something so unpredictable and volatile into its results would make it hard to gauge the company’s overall performance.
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