The payments giant Square is on a Bitcoin buying spree.
Square has purchased about $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in the past 12 months in order to facilitate massive customer demand on its mobile app, according to the crypto analytics firm Messari.
The majority of those BTC purchases happened in the most recent quarter. Square’s Cash App reports about $858 million worth of BTC purchases between April and June, a more than 186% increase from the nearly $300 million worth of Bitcoin purchased in 2020 Q1. It’s also a nearly 600% increase from 2019 Q2, which only saw $122.938 million in BTC purchases.
Cash App buys Bitcoin so customers can buy it. Accordingly, the app also saw massive increases in BTC revenue and gross profit in 2020 Q2, says Square.
“Cash App generated $875 million of Bitcoin revenue and $17 million of Bitcoin gross profit during the second quarter of 2020, up 600% and 711% year-over-year, respectively.
Bitcoin revenue and gross profit benefited from an increase in Bitcoin actives and growth in customer demand.”
In May, the app enabled a new feature that allows users to make automatic and recurring Bitcoin purchases. Users can set the app to make BTC buys on a regular schedule, and they have the option to view the value of their crypto assets in sats (satoshis), the smallest unit of Bitcoin.