Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, Says, “The Internet Deserves a Native Currency”

0
1695
default
Jack Dorsey, CEO of @Square and @Twitter, with Elizabeth Stark of Lightning Labs at Consensus 2018 in New York City.

“The internet deserves a native currency…I don’t know if it’s #bitcoin or not. I hope it will be,” said Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square at Consensus on Wednesday. “It’s going to happen. We need to learn how to help make that happen.”

Dorsey sat down with Elizabeth Stark of Lightning Labs in New York to talk about Square’s new Cash app, which allows consumers to buy and sell bitcoin.

Below are select quotes from Dorsey’s session:

“No corporation or government body or corporation can or should own [cryptocurrency],” he said. “Let’s do our part to encourage it to be used… and [make sure] it continues to be a fair and level playing field.”

Initially, using bitcoin in the Cash app, “was a pretty contentious move,” Dorsey said. “We have a lot of healthy skepticism in the company…but we always take the mindset of, ‘We can’t wait for things to happen to us, we have to make them happen.”

“Email wasn’t the right way to do it, so we made an app. We knew that we weren’t first… but we thought that we had a much better approach. We saw it as a spending device. We issued a branded credit card.”

“The number one and two businesses used on the Cash app are Walmart and McDonalds… for everyday purchases.”

“The thing that Square is really good at is speed and efficiency. We wanted to have that same thing with Bitcoin [and the Cash app]. But ultimately, we wanted to be fast,” he said.

“Our focus is ‘How to do we get this to be an everyday currency?’,” said Dorsey. “We get the power of the crowd and this amazing ability to see so many different perspectives… it’s completely open.”

“I also think our role is to help educate,” said Dorsey, “which includes this children’s books”. The first is: “My First Bitcoin and the Legend of Satoshi Nakamoto,” which he still hopes the company will publish for bookstores.

Screen Shot    at
Page from “My First Bitcoin and the Legend of Satoshi Nakamoto” from Jack Dorsey’s Cash app project.