bitcoin is becoming a critical tool for many in Africa and Central and South America. We believe the same potential exists within communities in the US. Our goal is to prove that making powerful tools more available to people enables them to build greater independence.
Education is where we start. This isn’t just about bitcoin…it’s about long-term thinking, local economies, and self-confidence. Courses are free to all Marcy residents, including kids. And to make it even easier we’re providing devices and data plans for all who need it.
I have tried taking a break from Twitter recently, but I must say: the company has always tried to do its best given the information it had. Every decision we made was ultimately my responsibility*. In the cases we were wrong or went too far, we admitted it and worked to correct.
Some things can be fixed immediately, and others require rethinking and reimplementing the entire system. It is important to me that we get critical feedback in all of its forms, but also important that we get the space and time to address it. All of that should be done publicly.
A transparent system, both in policy and operations, is the right way to earn trust. Whether it’s owned by a company or an open protocol doesn’t matter _as much as_ deliberately deciding to be open about every decision and why it was made. It's not easy to do, but it must happen.
I love Twitter. Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness.
The idea and service is all that matters to me, and I will do whatever it takes to protect both. Twitter as a company has always been my sole issue and my biggest regret. It has been owned by Wall Street and the ad model. Taking it back from Wall Street is the correct first step.
Square is considering building a Bitcoin mining system based on custom silicon and open source for individuals and businesses worldwide. If we do this, we’d follow our hardware wallet model: build in the open in collaboration with the community. First some thoughts and questions.
1/Mining needs to be more distributed. The core job of a miner is to securely settle transactions without the need for trusted 3rd parties. This is critical well after the last bitcoin is mined. The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the Bitcoin network becomes. True?
2/Mining needs to be more efficient. Driving towards clean and efficient energy use is great for Bitcoin’s economics, impact, and scalability. Energy is a system-level problem that requires innovation in silicon, software, and integration. What are the largest opportunities here?
Forcing reporting rules on Americans who develop software and hardware, who mine and secure the network, or who run nodes to build resilience and efficiencies, is an impossible ask that will only drive development and operation of this critical technology outside the US.
If we can’t strike the entire provision so we can have proper hearings and deliberation, then let’s simplify the definition of broker to what really matters: where digital assets are exchanged for fiat currency.
Square is creating a new business (joining Seller, Cash App, & Tidal) focused on building an open developer platform with the sole goal of making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services. Our primary focus is #Bitcoin. Its name is TBD.
Like our new #Bitcoin hardware wallet, we’re going to do this completely in the open. Open roadmap, open development, and open source. @brockm is leading and building this team, and we have some ideas around the initial platform primitives we want to build.
How is this different from @SqCrypto? Square doesn’t give direction to @SqCrypto, only funding. They chose to work on LDK, and are doing an incredible job! TBD will be focused on creating a platform business, and will open source our work along the way.