Square Cash App Bitcoin Revenues Swell 785% in 2020

Square raked in $4.57 billion in bitcoin revenue in 2020, with $97 million of that going to the company in gross profit, according to the company’s earnings report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),

Year over year, that’s a 785% increase in bitcoin revenue.

The San Francisco payments giant reported on Tuesday that the revenue it made from selling bitcoin on Cash App contributed to “48% of total consolidated revenue in 2020, and 85% of the total increase in consolidated net revenues in 2020.”

In the fourth quarter of last year, the company reported $1.76 billion in bitcoin revenue and $41 million in gross profit. Bitcoin costs in the same period were $1.71 billion. The company attributed the increase to the bitcoin bull run and growth in the number of bitcoin customers and the volume of transactions per customer.

“We’re going to focus on increasing transaction limits across the system for Cash App and going to double down on our commitment to bitcoin and look for new ways to connect our products within the Cash App,” Square CEO Jack Dorsey said during an earnings call on Tuesday.

It’s still early days for bitcoin at Square, with only 10% of Cash App customers "using the bitcoin product," said Square Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja.

“We’ve continued to see strong adoption, with 3 million customers [buying bitcoin] through the past year, and in January we saw 1 million new to bitcoin in just one month,” Ahuja said.

In its earnings release the company added:

“The increase was due to the market price of bitcoin, growth in the number of active bitcoin customers, as well as volume per customer. The amount of bitcoin revenue recognized will fluctuate depending on customer demand as well as changes in the market price of bitcoin.”

Additionally, Square announced Tuesday it had added 3,318 BTC to its bitcoin treasury. The $170 million purchase comes in addition to a $50 million bitcoin investment in October.