Bitcoin

Jack Dorsey’s Square Makes First ‘Bitcoin Not Blockchain’ Hire

Emilio Janus | Jun 13, 2019 | 10:00

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Following Jack Dorsey’s commitment to ‘give back’ to the Bitcoin ecosystem, Square Crypto has announced its first employee.

Although not without a bit of good-natured trolling on Twitter first.

Jack Dorsey’s Descent Into Bitcoin’s Rabbit Hole

Twitter and Square CEO, Jack Dorsey, is a big fan of Bitcoin. We know this because a/ he doesn’t stop going on about it, and b/ see a/.

In 2017 he introduced an easy on-ramp into Square’s Cash App, allowing users to buy and sell Bitcoin directly within the app. This led the Cash app to become the top ranking finance app on the Apple App Store today.

Back in March, he made a commitment to the wider Bitcoin and open source ecosystem. He would ‘give back’ to the community for the valuable contribution Square had gained through its use. This was to be in the form of hiring a team of developers and designers, to work on open source projects to benefit Bitcoin, not Square.

And So, Dorsey Bestowed Upon The Earth, Square Crypto

With much fanfare, Square Crypto launched its Twitter account with a call for recommendations. ‘Who (other than yourself),’ it asked, ‘should we hire?’

And that was pretty much it. Since then the account has tweeted ‘pseudo-philosophy’, ‘witty’ asides, and the occasional meme, all with a Bitcoin bent. It is purported to be written by “four black cats using a WiFi-connected Ouija board.”

Until yesterday…

Meet Blockchain Fan, Gary

The account’s first tweet in over a fortnight read:

Hey guys. Management here. It seems the cats discovered catnip. While they’re vision questing, please welcome our summer intern and inaugural hire, Gary Fuches. Let’s give Gary a warm crypto welcome.

Then came a message from Mr. Fuches, himself, proclaiming the strength of his love for… blockchain?

Hello everybody! My name's Gary and I'm here to say, I love blockchain in a very big way!!!

— Square Crypto (@sqcrypto) June 12, 2019

Needless to say, this got the fans in a froth. The most popular comment on this post was “Bitcoin, not blockchain.”

Bitcoin, Not Blockchain

Thankfully, Square Crypto revealed their troll-ery just 12 minutes later, before things descended into violence, posting:

Hey guys. Management again. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out with Gary. However, we think we’ve found somebody who can live up to his commitment to decentralization. Please welcome Steve Lee, aka @moneyball, to the Square Crypto team.

Steve is a former product director at Google, an angel investor, and a volunteer project manager, helping to drive Bitcoin adoption through open-source development.

His first tweet was “Bitcoin, not blockchain. Very excited about this opportunity!”

So everybody was happy again.

Will Square Crypto help boost Bitcoin’s ecosystem? Add your thoughts below!

Images via Shutterstock