Fueled by the ongoing expansion of the Lightning Network, bitcoin (BTC) has the potential to disrupt the existing legacy payment networks the world over — and Block, the payments company formerly known as Square, hopes to use the cryptocurrency to boost its presence across the globe.
Block aims to accomplish this by using bitcoin in transactions, but also launching its hardware wallet and crypto mining gear, senior company representatives said during a recent Investor Day virtual event.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block and co-founder of Twitter, said that the company’s mission is to become an “ecosystem of ecosystems” in which buyers and sellers intertwine as consumers of the company’s wide range of financial services. Bitcoin’s use in these ecosystems is a part of the company’s expansion plans, he said.
“We also see bitcoin as an extraordinary trend towards an open standard for global money transition. That becoming a reality allows our entire business to move faster globally for sellers, consumers, for artists,” according to Dorsey.
Block’s CEO said that the company was readying to release a hardware wallet and bitcoin miner equipment which were to be rolled out by Block’s TBD business unit that began its operations last year.
These two products “will all enable a self-sovereign economy that will address many faults in the current financial system,” according to Dorsey. “We’re no longer just a payments company.”
Amrita Ahuja, Chief Financial Officer at Square, said during the virtual event that the company is expanding its portfolio of services to serve a broader audience, including its forthcoming self-custody solution for crypto investors.
“The bitcoin ecosystem is still in its early stages. Its value is growing rapidly, but remains small compared with other financial assets and equities,” Ahuja said. “We believe growing adoption, engagement and use cases at the speed of the internet will be a powerful growth engine for bitcoin.”
The increasing adoption of the Lightning Network could enable the cryptocurrency to disrupt the existing payment networks, according to the CFO.
“We’re building integrated hardware and software to address self-custody within a wallet, and decentralized mining with a new mining system,” Ahuja stated.
Source: Cryptonews
