When it comes to sending and accepting digital payments, Square has quickly become a very popular solution. Few people expected the company to experiment with Bitcoin, though it’s now doing just that. Select users can buy and sell the world’s leading cryptocurrency through the Square Cash app. This is an interesting development which may herald a new era for digital payments entirely.
Square Cash Implements Bitcoin Features
It is always good to see established payment solutions integrate cryptocurrency support. More specifically, the Square Cash app now allows users to buy and sell Bitcoin. Although this feature is only available to a select few right now, it is possible this feature will roll out to other users in the near future. No official date has been confirmed for this change, nor do we know how long this limited trial will run for.
It is pretty interesting to see this option appear within the Square Cash app, though. Despite having a very basic interface at best, it does provide all the functionality one would expect. In-app purchases and sales of Bitcoin are working, although it is unclear which exchange is used to process these transactions. Wallet balances are displayed in USD and BTC, and there is a graph to display the performance of one’s portfolio over the past year.
It remains to be seen how the Square Cash app works under the hood, though. One user indicated sending BTC to the address provided in the app didn’t work flawlessly, as it took a while to show up. This seems to indicate that the company uses pooled wallets to hold user funds, and doesn’t give users full access to their private keys. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise, though. Depending on potential third-party integration, this is the normal way of conducting business for service providers lacking Bitcoin infrastructures of their own.
Notably, the Square Cash platform will not serve as a regular Bitcoin wallet. More specifically, sending and receiving money will not be the main purpose of this application for the time being. Buying and selling Bitcoin through the app makes more sense than competing with services such as Coinbase in storing user funds. Then again, it is in stark contrast to the company’s present business model, which is all about sending and receiving digital money.
Another question that needs to be answered is whether or not there is a specific fee structure in place. No service provider allows people to buy or sell Bitcoin without paying a surcharge, for obvious reasons. Nor do we know whether any buy or sell limits apply to users either. There are still a lot of unknown variables which need to be cleared up before the full extent of this integration makes complete sense. It is certainly true that Square has been working on this integration for some time now, as it was hinted at several months ago.
This news comes at a very interesting time for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. With so much focus on Bitcoin Cash, one would almost expect companies such as Square to focus on this altcoin instead. So far, that has not been the case, although that’s still subject to change. This is an intriguing development well worth keeping an eye on, even if we only know a small part of the story right now. The future is looking very bright for Bitcoin in general; that much is evident.
