Jack Dorsey dramatically scales back crypto ambitions for Block

During the crypto-crazed summer of 2021, when memecoins like dogecoin and Shiba Inu were rocketing alongside bitcoin and ethereum, Square founder Jack Dorsey announced that his payments company was starting a new business unit, with the goal of “making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services.”

“Our primary focus is #Bitcoin,” Dorsey proclaimed on Twitter. The name of the business unit would be TBD.

In December of that year, Dorsey went a step further, changing the name of Square Inc. to Block, a reference, he said, to a number of things, including blockchain, the technology underpinning bitcoin. The Square Crypto business became known as Spiral.

Three years later, Dorsey is in retreat.

On Block‘s third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, CFO Amrita Ahuja said Block has “made some recent decisions with respect to some of our emerging initiatives” and is “winding down our TBD efforts.”

Block continues to own a hefty amount of bitcoin on its balance sheet, with the current value of its holdings swelling to $630 million. And the company said it will be investing in a bitcoin mining initiative as well as Bitkey, its bitcoin wallet, while continuing to allow users to buy bitcoin through Cash App.

It’s a notable change of tune.

TBD was designed to be Block’s platform for developers. Block called it Web5 and said the mission was to create a more decentralized, secure and private internet. Dorsey said in a tweet in mid-2022 that Web5 “will likely be our most important contribution to the internet.”

But Wall Street’s view on crypto was starting to sour dramatically. With inflation soaring in 2022 and interest rates on the rise, shareholders demanded quicker returns on their investments. After peaking in 2021, Block shares lost more than 80% of their value before bottoming in October of last year.

Block said in late 2023 that it would cut its headcount — then about 13,000 staffers — by as much as 1,000 by the end of 2024. Fortune reported that Block laid off employees at TBD in recent weeks. And in the third-quarter shareholder letter, Block said it was “scaling back” its investment in Tidal, the music-streaming service founded by Jay-Z, after spending about $300 million on a majority stake in the business in 2021. Tidal was part of TBD.

Dorsey was asked by an analyst on Thursday’s call about the company’s current bitcoin strategy.

“What we’re focused on in terms of our strategy overall on bitcoin is making it more accessible, making sure that more people can access bitcoin, buy, sell it, obviously, but also send it peer-to-peer,” Dorsey said.

Dorsey added that he wants “the internet to have a native currency,” because that would allow Block to move money faster and offer Cash App and other products in more markets.

A Block spokesperson reiterated the company’s public statement and pointed to Dorsey’s comments from the earnings call.

What’s become clear is that Dorsey can only do so much with crypto while trying to appease a more discerning Wall Street. Shares of Block were down about 1% at market close on Friday, after the company reported revenue that trailed estimates and issued weaker gross profit guidance than some analysts were expecting.

In his 1,400-word letter to shareholders, Dorsey focused entirely on the company’s lending offerings for small businesses. A significant chunk of that is the buy now, pay later product from Afterpay, which Block acquired for $29 billion in 2021.

Dorsey didn’t mention crypto or bitcoin once.

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