Twitter co-founder and outgoing CEO Jack Dorsey threw in the towel earlier this week, announcing he’d immediately be succeeded by former Twitter CTO Parag Agrawal. But luckily for the blockchain obsessed Dorsey, he’s still got his payments side-hustle Square, sorry, Block.
On Wednesday, Square announced it was changing its name to Block. Block will be the name for the company as a corporate entity, it says.
“The change differentiates the Square brand, which was built for the seller business, from the corporate entity,” the company said in a statement.
The name change to Block, it said, distinguishes the corporate entity from its businesses, or building blocks. As explained in the most tech bro paragraph to ever tech bro:
The name has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighbourhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome.
Not to get all meta on you… but we’re going to! Block references the neighborhood blocks where we find our sellers, a blockchain, block parties full of music, obstacles to overcome, a section of code, building blocks, and of course, tungsten cubes.
— Square (@Square) December 1, 2021
There’s even a soundtrack curated by Jay-Z to accompany the name change. (Side note, Jay-Z is heavily into NFTs, praising Dorsey in a tweet back in March for being “one of the greatest minds of our times“, too).
You can also play with the block on the website. W i l d.
“We built the Square brand for our seller business, which is where it belongs,” Dorsey, who is now CEO of Block, added. “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.”
The move is hardly surprising considering @jack has long been a supporter of blockchain, so much so that his bio on Twitter simply reads #bitcoin.
#Bitcoin will unite a deeply divided country.
(and eventually: world)
— jack⚡️ (@jack) August 9, 2021
Anyway. There will be no organisational changes, and Square, Cash App, TIDAL and TBD54566975 will continue to maintain their respective brands. Square in August also announced it would be welcoming Australia’s AfterPay to its family, for a cool $39 billion.
The legal name Square, Inc. is expected to be legally changed to Block, Inc. on or about December 10, 2021, upon satisfying all applicable legal requirements.