Block is starting a stablecoin payments team
Originally posted on LinkedIn here
Block (Square + Cash App) is starting a stablecoin payments team ⬇️
Posted a few days ago, the listing mentions:
➞ Being a founding member of Block's Payment Rails team which sits between Cash App and Square to support money movement between consumers and merchants
➞ Goal is explicitly “𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧-𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬” through “𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭, 𝐥𝐨𝐰-𝐟𝐞𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤”
This is relevant for three reasons:
1️⃣ Network building is the hardest part of a payment system (Visa/Mastercard networks took decades to build) and 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 of merchants and consumers
➞ Square is a leader in point-of-sale systems, serving 4 million sellers and processing over $200B annually
➞ Cash app has 57M monthly users, 24M use the Cash App Card monthly
2️⃣ Block has 𝟒 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 to drive cost efficiencies through stablecoins
➞ Square made $0.9B gross profit in Q3 2024 after about $1B of transaction-based costs
➞ That’s an opportunity of up to $4B annually. Savings here could potentially double gross profit
3️⃣ Jack Dorsey (and therefore Block) is a 𝐁𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
➞ Most stablecoins exist on Ethereum, Tron or other EVM chains
➞ Stablecoin issuance on Bitcoin (Lightning, L2s) is nascent but growing (see Tether announcement)
➞ Bitcoin & Lightning are notoriously difficult to build on but firms like Lightspark make it easier, and new EVM compatible L2s like Strata by Alpen Labs are helping bring over existing EVM developers
➞ This could potentially drive developer and market adoption of stablecoins on Bitcoin, the most decentralized and widely adopted blockchain network
Know a person that might be interested? Check out the first comment for a link to the post (includes salary range) and other open roles in the stablecoin payments space.