Square will change its corporate name to Block

2 Dec 2021

Image: © Sundry Photography/Stock.adobe.com

The name change aims to highlight the company’s growth beyond its original card payment business and into new areas such as blockchain.

Square, the payments company founded and led by Jack Dorsey, will change its name to Block from 10 December.

In a blogpost, the company said the change differentiates the corporate entity from its Square Seller brand, which takes its name from the shape of the compact contactless card reader it produces.

The Square product and the company’s other services, Tidal, Cash App and TBD, will maintain their brands under the new company name. However, its Square Crypto product will be renamed to Spiral.

According to Square, the new name encompasses several meanings, from building blocks to blockchain.

Dorsey, who recently stepped down from his role as CEO of Twitter, is a long-time crypto advocate. Earlier this year, he confirmed Square’s plans to build a hardware wallet for storing bitcoin and launched crypto-focused business TBD.

“We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs,” he said. “Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.”

Last month, Square announced it would create 30 new jobs at its European headquarters in Dublin, less than six months after its services officially launched in Ireland.

While Dublin has been the site of Square’s operations in Europe for several years, the company began rolling out its e-commerce and payment processing tools for clients in Ireland in April, ahead of a full launch in May.

The company has made several acquisitions earlier this year, including workforce messaging app Crew, ‘buy now, pay later’ service Afterpay and a majority share in music streaming service Tidal.

Square’s new name comes roughly a month after Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta.

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Jenny Darmody is the editor of Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com