Photo: JD Lasica / Flickr
Bitcoin, just like most of the other major cryptocurrencies, has had a troubled start to 2019. Many analysts and commentators predict that the long-running Bitcoin bear market could run on well into most of 2019. However, not everybody is predicting gloom and doom for bitcoin. Co-founder and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, declared that he believes Bitcoin will become the internet’s native currency eventually.
It is not the first time that Dorsey has endorsed Bitcoin. We reported earlier in 2018 when he stated that bitcoin would become the world’s ‘single currency.’ At that time, Twitter’s CEO stated that the developments of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network would solve the scalability issues. That would give the largest crypto by market capitalization a big boost.
In another instance in 2018, we announced Dorsey’s wishes of hoping that the crypto would become internet’s native currency. Dorsey, who is also the CEO of payments processor Square, has repeated his prediction. He made the latest comments during an interview with American podcast host and comedian Joe Rogan published on Feb. 2. He said:
“I believe the internet will have a native currency and I don’t know if it is bitcoin. I think it [bitcoin] will be; given all the tests it has been through and the principles behind it, how it was created. It was something that was born on the internet, that was developed on the internet, that was tested on the internet…It is of the internet.”
Bitcoin and Square
Since 2014, Dorsey’s San Francisco-based Square has supported bitcoin transactions. It started by allowing merchants to accept the crypto. Later, it added BTC trading to its renowned Cash App early last year. Users can send the digital currency to one another via the platform. Dorsey said:
“The reason why we enabled the purchasing of BTC in the Cash App is that we wanted to learn about the technology, and put ourselves out there and take some risks.”
Within ten years since its launch in 2009, Square has transformed into a $29 billion digital payments giant. It is also gradually becoming the go-to platform for users to receive and send money and also buy Bitcoin. Dorsey announced on February 3 that Square Cash/Cash App became the 2nd most popular free mobile application on the Apple App Store.
In the first quarter of 2018, Square made $34.1 million from selling bitcoin. However, it cost the company $33.9 million to buy the tokens. Thus, they made approximately $200,000 in bitcoin-related profit. By the third quarter of 2018, revenue surpassed $43 within that period. Dorsey stated that bitcoin is still his token of choice to become the internet’s native currency saying:
“The world ultimately will have a single currency; the internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be bitcoin … This can happen probably over ten years, but it could go faster.”
Bitcoin Adoption
Dorsey said that some of the major banks are considering bitcoin. These financial institutions ‘love’ blockchain due to the efficiencies it can create for their business models. Also, they see the technology in potentially new business lines. However, the technology is threatening some services behind, governments, financial institutions, and banks.
The internet is transitioning into a system where any data that is created will be online permanently. Blockchain will help with that. The decentralized nature of blockchain is what drives its increasing adoption across various industries. Dorsey believes that BTC will become the native crypto of the internet. He also thinks that it will be adopted into the mainstream global financial systems in the future.
