Bitcoin Sales $166M Of Square Q4 Revenue

When Square released its Q4 financial results, the company reported that bitcoin sales accounted for $166 million of its revenue last year, according to reports.

The company filed a report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday (Feb. 27) and said it made an overall net revenue of $3.3 billion in 2018, and that 5 percent of that total was from bitcoin.

The actual amount of bitcoin sales was $166,571,000, and the cost of buying the coin was around $165 million, which gave Square a net profit of $1.69 million. In the second half of the year, Square took in $95 million in bitcoin revenue, higher than the around $71 million in the first. Profit in the first half was $643,000, and was $1.047 million in the second.

The company said loss on bitcoin for the year was “insignificant,” and that the carrying value of bitcoin was $200,000 at the end of the year.

The company added the option to buy and sell bitcoin on its Cash app in November of 2017. Initially, it was offered to only a small number of users. In August of last year, Square expanded the option to all 50 states, after it received a “BitLicense” from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

In terms of headline numbers, the payments processing firm reported adjusted revenues of $464 million, up 64 percent year on year, while the Street had looked for $454 million. Earnings on an adjusted basis were $0.14 per share, which matched the Street.

Digging into the numbers a bit, GPV was up 28 percent in Q4 to $23 billion. Transaction-based revenue was up 27 percent to $668 million. The Cash app, Square said, had more than 15 million monthly active users in December 2018, more than double the number seen in the final month of 2017.

In terms of seller mix, those with annualized volumes north of $500,000 made up 24 percent of the GPV, while those between $125,000 and $500,000 comprised 28 percent. That means larger sellers were 51 percent of the mix, compared to a similar tally of 47 percent in the same period last year. (Management also spotlighted the fact that verticals such as restaurants are seeing increased momentum with Square’s offerings.)