M&A, Bitcoin Trading Adds $8B In Market Cap To Square

Shares of Square have risen almost 50 percent, adding about $8 billion in market value, since the company launched bitcoin trading last year for its Cash App customers.

Square’s founder and chief executive, Jack Dorsey, helped to enable merchants to accept bitcoin as a payment method back in 2014. He also famously said, “Bitcoin: we tried this with our eCommerce store years back. Didn’t see much. Would love to see a digital currency thrive,” in a tweet last year.

And according to Bloomberg, Square’s shares have also surged 25 percent since the company announced it was buying website builder Weebly, which provides tools to easily build a professional website or online store.

Square will pay with a combination of cash and stock of approximately $365 million, which includes restricted stock units for Weebly’s founders and employees that will vest over four years after closing. This is Square’s biggest acquisition to date.

“Square and Weebly share a passion for empowering and celebrating entrepreneurs,” said Dorsey. “Square began its journey with in-person solutions, while Weebly began its journey online. Since then, we’ve both been building services to bridge these channels, and we can go even further and faster together.”

The deal builds Square’s online and eCommerce offerings for small and medium-size businesses, while also giving it a recurring revenue stream and new customers.

Square’s stock closed on Thursday (May 31) at $58.25, a new record high, shortly before the company raised its annual revenue forecast to reflect the impact of it latest acquisition.

Square’s gross payment volume could reach $409 billion in 2026, or 4.1 percent of total U.S. payment volume, RBC Capital Markets analyst Daniel Perlin predicted in a recent note to clients.

“Square’s integrated hardware, software and services solutions position the company to benefit from ongoing card acceptance penetration at smaller merchants, while gaining share against existing solutions that lag from a technological or efficiency basis,” wrote Perlin.