Coming soon to a Square merchant near you: the ability to pay with bitcoin or Apple Pay. Square CEO Jack Dorsey recently told reporters in Square’s new Canadian home-base that Square’s next reader will come equipped to handle both alternative payment methods.
“We’re building a register so that sellers can accept a credit card, so they can accept cash, so they can accept a cheque, so they can accept Bitcoin and so they can accept any form of payment that comes across the counter including future ones and burgeoning ones like Apple Pay,” Dorsey told the CBC earlier this week.
Dorsey further noted that this plan comes as part of Square’s overall vision to make it possible for merchants of all shapes and sizes to take any payments, any time, anywhere.
“Square sellers should never have to miss out on a sale. They should be able to accept any form of payment,” Square spokesman Johnny Brackett told Wired.
Bitcoin is still a far cry from a mainstream payment method. More people in the U.K. believe they have been abducted by aliens than currently own bitcoin, and Apple Pay still remains in its theoretical instead of actual space–but with Square’s merchants (small businesses that are unlikely to make big expensive upgrades for new POS technology) base, perhaps both could inch closer to the mainstream.
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