Square is working on a new platform for decentralized finance (DeFi), Bloomberg reported.
CEO Jack Dorsey said in a tweet Thursday (July 15) that the company wants to make it easier to “create non-custodial, permissionless and decentralized financial services.”
He said in the tweet that Square’s new venture thus far doesn’t have a name, but that the primary focus would be on bitcoin.
Cash App, Square Seller products and the music-streaming service Tidal are the three business lines Square runs. Dorsey has been interested for some time in making a new kind of organization more broad and with several standalone units, according to Bloomberg.
Dorsey, a big bitcoin supporter over the years, said last month that Square would build a new kind of hardware wallet geared for crypto, Bloomberg reported.
“Like our new #Bitcoin hardware wallet, we’re going to do this completely in the open,” he tweeted Thursday. “Open roadmap, open development and open source.”
A team of engineers is working to get the hardware wallet done, PYMNTS reported. The wallet aims to store a user’s private key, which could then open a lock to an address and access the digital assets.
Dorsey also recently said that bitcoin makes up 5 percent of its total holdings, according to Bloomberg.
Dorsey has not waned on his commitment to bitcoin. He said in May that Square would always work to boost the popular cryptocurrency, adding bitcoin “changes everything for the better.”
But he said he agrees with the idea that crypto shouldn’t be used for any attempts to change things from one particular person or institution.
Dorsey’s remarks seemed to be in response to a comment from Square Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja, who said Square’s strategy hadn’t changed. Ahuja was also quoted saying Square would be halting bitcoin purchases.
At the time, the company had lost $20 million on bitcoin in the previous quarter.
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