Square Lets Customers Buy Bitcoin

Square, the digital payment company, is getting into bitcoin by reportedly letting some of its customers purchase the cryptocurrency.

According to news from Bloomberg, Square is allowing Square Cash mobile app users to make bitcoin purchases. In a statement, Square said it is exploring how the company can make the mobile app faster and easier to use by rolling out the ability to purchase bitcoin to a small number of its Square Cash customers.

“Given Square’s tendency to move judiciously into new technologies, we expect it will do the same with bitcoin purchases,” Credit Suisse AG Analyst Paul Condra wrote in a note to clients. “The upside could be significant if cryptocurrencies become more mainstream.”

News that the digital payment company would enable the purchase of the cryptocurrency sent bitcoin’s stock price higher in early trading on Wednesday (Nov. 15). Square’s Founder and Chief Executive Jack Dorsey is a big supporter of bitcoin. He helped enable merchants to accept it 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.  

PayPal is another digital payments provider that Credit Suisse AG thinks could be in a good position to offer the digital currency. “If consumer demand increases for any new form of currency, we will consider support for those new payment methods as they become relevant to our customers over time,” said Amanda Christine Miller, a spokeswoman for PayPal.

At the same time that digital payments players are embracing bitcoin, some on Wall Street are rallying against it. JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has been the most vocal to dismiss bitcoin, recently calling it a “fraud.”