Digital payments platform Square rebrands to Block as focus turns to blockchain
Square, the digital payments company, has reportedly announced that it is changing its official name to Block, in what appears to be the firm’s shifting focus towards blockchain technology. In a tweet on December 1, Square had made the announcement that its rebranding would bring it together with the decentralized Bitcoin exchange project tbDEX, the payments firm Cash App, and music/video streaming platform Tidal.
An accompanying piece of the news release has also said that Square Crypto, the cryptocurrency-focused branch of the payment company, would also be changing its name to Spiral for joining to the Block family. Square was noted saying the news release that Block references the neighbourhood blocks where they find sellers, block parties full of music, obstacles that need to be overcome, a section of code, a blockchain, building blocks, and tungsten cubes. The release also informed that the firm has been working on these changes for over a year, and the latest move only represents a change of their official corporate name; “not our purpose, our vision, our structure or how we operate.”
The rebranding has come into the news just two days following Square — now Block — CEO Jack Dorsey resigning his position at Twitter. Dorsey had cited the reason that he needed to give his Parag Agrawal, his replacement, “the space to work without his influence” at the social media giant firm.
Many are, in fact, speculated that Dorsey would be getting deeper into the crypto and blockchain space through Square’s operations, in a similar way like Facebook had turned its focus from social media with its rebranding to Meta. Dorsey had said in the announcement that “Block is a new name,” but the firm’s purpose of “economic empowerment remains the same.” He added that no matter how the firm grows or changes, they would continue building tools “to help increase access to the economy.”
Square has informed in its news release statement that the name change would be effective “on or about” December 10. According to the company, there would be no organizational changes made in Block, Tidal, Cash App, Spiral or tbDEX.
