Square, the payments company run by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has reported a significant increase in revenue from its Bitcoin trading business during the first quarter of the year.
Record Bitcoin sales and profit
According to Square’s first-quarter financial report, the company recorded just over $959 million in total net revenue in the first three months of the year. Bitcoin sales accounted for $65.5 million of that revenue, which was a new record for the company’s nascent crypto business. The previous record, set in Q4 2018, was $52.4 million.
Meanwhile, the company’s Bitcoin costs also rose to $64.7 million, meaning that the Bitcoin operation’s profit was only about $800,000. Still, this was also higher that the Q4 result of around $500,000.
Square made Bitcoin trading available to US users of its Cash mobile payments app in February of last year, after several months of limited beta period. The new business generated just over $34 million in revenue in that quarter, while incurring nearly $34 million of Bitcoin costs. The service expanded to all 50 US states in August 2018.
At the moment, Bitcoin trading is still a small part of Square’s business, but the company seems willing to continue its foray into the crypto space. Jack Dorsey, in particular, is a big believer in Bitcoin and has indicated in the past that he thinks that BTC could become the native currency of the Internet.
Strong Thursday morning for BTC
Meanwhile, Bitcoin continues its strong performance, after it finished April with a 30% gain. The coin saw a significant uptick earlier today, which allowed it to reclaim the $5,400 mark.
In today’s trading, the Bitcoin price stood at $5,450.16, as of 11:20 BST. The digital coin has gained 1.3% in the past 24 hours, according to data from digital currency tracker Coinmarketcap. The coin’s total market capitalisation currently stands at $96.3 billion which represents 54.5% of the combined value of all digital coins.