Square Is Hiring New Crypto Engineers — And It Wants to Pay Them in Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
Payments startup Square plans to hire a number of engineers and a designer to work on its crypto initiatives, according to tweets from CEO Jack Dorsey. Square Is Hiring New Crypto Engineers — And It Wants to Pay Them in Bitcoin
Dorsey, who also founded and runs Twitter, announced Wednesday evening that Square plans to hire three or four engineers and one designer “to work full-time on open source contributions to the bitcoin/crypto ecosystem.” A Square spokesman said there was no additional information to share beyond the tweets.
Perhaps more notably, these new hires have the option of being paid in bitcoin, Dorsey said.
All work will be open source, and according to Dorsey, the new hires will not be focusing on Square’s own commercial interests, but rather, “on what’s best for the crypto community.”
Dorsey has long been a proponent of bitcoin, repeatedly saying he hopes that bitcoin will become the internet’s – and the world’s – single native currency in the far future.
In Wednesday’s tweet thread, Dorsey added that improving the crypto ecosystem seems to be “the most impactful thing” Square can do for the community, going on to say:
“Square has taken a lot from the open source community to get us here. We haven’t given enough back. This is a small way to give back, and one that’s aligned with our broader interests: a more accessible global financial system for the internet.”
Square’s Cash App already supports bitcoin purchases and sales, and Dorsey previously announced that it would support the Lightning Network, a layer-2 solution aimed at facilitating small, fast transactions.
Updated: 9-20-2019
Square Crypto Hires Lightning, Libra Developers for ‘Bitcoin Dream Team’
Square Crypto, the division of the publicly traded payments company that focuses exclusively on bitcoin, just announced three new hires to work on open source projects.
Among them is Facebook and BitGo alum Arik Sosman, most recently a member of the social media giant’s Calibra subsidiary. He told CoinDesk:
“My personal areas of interest are privacy and [Layer 2] scalability, though we’ll see what the team ultimately ends up working on. … I’m extremely excited and grateful for the opportunity to join this amazing team, and to focus on contributing to the most important cryptocurrency and ecosystem.”
The other two notable hires, Lightning Labs alum Valentine Wallace and Google alum Jeffrey Czyz, are joining to help “grow the FOSS [free and open software] developer base,” according to company tweets.
Square Crypto is still hiring as well, looking for a designer to join the team led by former Google product director Steve Lee.
“Software engineering is far from the only realm people can make contributions to open-source projects in,” Sosman said. “Steve himself being a product manager is but one example.”
According to another company tweet Thursday, Square Crypto is still “deciding what our first project will be,” adding:
“There’s no project we won’t consider, as long as it improves or proliferates bitcoin.”
Updated: 3-5-2020
Jack Dorsey’s Square Publicly Launches Grants For Bitcoin Development
Square Crypto, the payments company launched by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, is now officially supporting Bitcoin (BTC) development through a grant program. This formalizes the already significant contributions made by the company toward the cryptocurrency.
Through a March 4 announcement, the company announced that the Square Grants program would be made publicly available. Two developers had already received grants: BTCPayServer received $100,000 to continue development of its open-source payment processor, and a pseudonymous developer received an undisclosed sum in connection to Lightning Network development.
With the announcement, Square revealed to have also granted undisclosed amounts to Jon Atack and Tankred Hase, two Bitcoin developers who have previously done significant work in the space.
How To Apply For Grants
Square has made the conditions for joining the program public. The rules state that grants can be received by a team or individuals all around the world, provided that they work on a Bitcoin project.
The proposals must improve Bitcoin’s user experience, scaling, privacy, security or “something else we haven’t thought of,” Square wrote. The developers must also be “in good standing” within the Bitcoin community.
The team listed several examples of applicable projects, citing new layer two solutions, privacy implementations like Payjoin or SNICKER, new wallets and several others.
Applicants need to send an email to Square and write a detailed proposal text. “We’ll get back to you if it excites us and lines up with grant criteria,” the announcement reads.
Square’s Previous Work
Square is a payments company led by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and it offers a wide variety of products in the payments ecosystem.
One of these is Cash App, a financial product for consumers that increasingly relies on Bitcoin to make revenue. In February, it was revealed that almost half of its earnings come from cryptocurrency users. The app allows them to purchase BTC in small amounts, with the average user only trading $7.50 every month.
Square is pushing forward with more cryptocurrency integrations, having obtained a patent for real-time crypto-to-fiat swaps in January. It is also actively supporting Bitcoin development through initiatives such as the Lightning Development Kit.
The company’s actions are not going unscrutinized, as some in the community raised questions on whether Square could influence Bitcoin’s development decisions.
Square Is Hiring New,Square Is Hiring New
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