After announcing his departure from Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) on Monday, you'd think Jack Dorsey would settle down, just for a bit.
Not so. On Wednesday, Dorsey, in his now singular role as CEO of Square (NYSE: SQ), announced the neo-banking and payments platform would be rebranding itself as Block.
The name change is undoubtedly a nod to Dorsey's very public fascination with cryptocurrencies. #Bitcoin is the only thing that features in his Twitter bio, after all.
But the new name, Block, is mainly meant to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of Square, said the company in a statement.
"The name has many associated meanings for the company - building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome, the company said.
Block will stand in as the name for the corporate umbrella, which now includes seller-focused Square, consumer-facing Cash App, music streamer Tidal, and TBD54566975, which is the name for the company's nascent bitcoin offering.
The name change will take effect Dec. 10, and will not result in any significant organizational changes, said the company. Nor will Block's ticker, NYSE: SQ, change along with the rebrand.
The text of the release only makes passing mention of notions like the blockchain and an announcement that Square Crypto will change its name to Spiral.
For his part, Dorsey made no mention of Bitcoin in the release.
"We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs," said Dorsey. "Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same."
For Dorsey, if his Twitter feed is to be believed, economic empowerment and bitcoin go hand in hand. "I don't think there's anything more important in my lifetime to work on," he said of BTC at a conference earlier this year.
Beyond the implications for crypto, the name change reflects the fact that Square has more properly become a cube, or Block, as the company's ecosystem has grown more encompassing.
Today you can earn a profit from Bitcoin through Cash App, the proceeds of which you then use to pay a merchant using Square, with the remainder of your earnings going toward your Tidal subscription, all under a single corporate umbrella.
Investors are pretty clear about the other three faces of Block: Square, Cash App, and Tidal. What is less clear is how hard and how fast the company will push in the direction of bitcoin; the TBD in TBD54566975 stands for "to be determined" after all.
Dorsey vaguely described the project as a bitcoin-focused developer platform earlier this year. Looking at Block's financials, you'd expect the company to push pretty hard to remove the "to be" from the name.
Earnings from the sale of Bitcoin accounted for a third of the company's revenues last quarter, at least on paper. But BTC's impact on Block's bottom line, according to Telis Demos, writing on behalf of the Wall Street Journal.
On a gross profit basis, adjusted for the cost of buying bitcoin, crypto sales accounted for less than 4% of profits Block's profits overall. Demos notes that crypto-focused Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) currently trades at 9 times forward earnings, while Block trades presently at 21, indicating investors have more interest in the other faces of Block than the ill-defined crypto side of the business.
"So while Block is one way to play bitcoin's wider potential, investors are really betting on much more," he said.