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Jack Dorsey triples down on Bitcoin

Hello and welcome to Protocol | Fintech! This Tuesday: Jack Dorsey loves Bitcoin while Trump hates it, and Wealthfront? Well, they'll manage.
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Bitcoin has been good for Square. The company is worth nearly six times what it was in late 2017, when the company announced it would let Cash App users buy and send the cryptocurrency, triggering a run-up in the company's shares.
With the crypto craze going mainstream and Cash App positioned as one of the easiest ways in, Square is cashing in. Bitcoin-related revenue jumped more than tenfold in the first quarter of this year, and now accounts for almost 70% of all of Square's revenue.
No wonder Jack Dorsey feels emboldened to widen the company's bets on crypto. At the Bitcoin Conference in Miami on Friday, Dorsey spoke at length about the company's plans and his personal passion for Bitcoin.
Does Square need to do this? There's an argument that bitcoin is a distraction from the company's core payments business.
There's a simple explanation for this, and like many things in Silicon Valley, it comes down to recruitment. To win over the best and brightest, you have to be the coolest. And in the payments world, right now, that means being a player in cryptocurrency. (See also: Facebook's Diem.)
The only thing you shouldn't expect to change, at least in the short term: Square's corporate bitcoin balance, which at one point had grown to $220 million, or 5% of its cash and cash equivalents. CFO Amrita Ahuja recently said the company didn't plan to add to its holdings.
— Tomio Geron
Recently, Micron announced new memory and storage innovations across its portfolio based on its industry-leading 176-layer NAND and 1α (1-alpha) DRAM technology. But what does "1α" mean, and just how amazing is it?
The DOJ hit back at DarkSide. The Justice Department said it recovered $2.3 million in bitcoin ransom paid to the Colonial Pipeline hackers.
Wealthfront embraces crypto. Co-founder Dan Carroll said the robo-advisor is considering offering Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but will continue to stress carefully considered investing goals "as opposed to gambling."
Dave is going public. The banking app backed by Mark Cuban said it will become a publicly-traded company through a SPAC merger with Venture Park Capital.
What fintech trend is most troubling for you?
In the modern world, payments are merely electronic notifications propagating an account's balance change in a distributed network of ledgers. It bothers me that it's highly desirable to clip the ticket and charge payees or payers a percentage of a transaction amount. It's the same field in a file — whether its value is in the hundreds of dollars or millions.
What fintech company have you been most impressed with this past year?
I'm really fascinated by Veem — the way they use blockchain to cut the cost of sending payments and consequently make electronic payments more accessible to their customers is truly awesome. Another company I find impressive is Mantl, which in some ways is similar to Fispan, but focused on opening bank accounts instead of payments.
What problem would you like to see a fintech company solve?
I would like to see a personal finance app that can review each line item as opposed to simply categorizing vendors. For example, when I visit a major retailer like Costco, existing apps would categorize it as "shopping" or "grocery" which doesn't help me understand if I spend too much on certain products.
Recently, Micron announced new memory and storage innovations across its portfolio based on its industry-leading 176-layer NAND and 1α (1-alpha) DRAM technology. But what does "1α" mean, and just how amazing is it?
That's the number of individual investors who own AMC stock as of March, accounting for 80% of the company's ownership.
Thanks for reading — see you Friday!
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