Ryze Recap 8/6: Cash App's Bitcoin Volume is Up 150%
Plus: JP Morgan Talks Demographics; a NASDAQ-listed Company May Buy Bitcoin
It’s Thursday, August 6th. If you’re new here— Ryze Recaps is a newsletter synthesizing the biggest news Bitcoiners need to know, in 2 minutes or less.
We’ve got one main story for you today.
Cash App's Bitcoin Volume is Up 150%
Tuesday, Square reported $875M in Bitcoin revenue in its Q2 shareholder letter, up more than 150% from $306M in Q1. Square facilitates the purchase and sale of Bitcoin (exclusively Bitcoin, no other crypto-assets) on Cash App, a consumer finance app with payments and a debit card. Cash App records the total sales of Bitcoin to its users as revenue— so this figure represents the total buy-side Bitcoin volume.
Cash App's $875M in quarterly volume pales in comparison to the $1.75B in total daily Bitcoin spot market volume, but Cash App's Bitcoin functionality is only available in the US. That being said, $875M is more than double last quarter's volume and represents a 6x year-over-year increase.
Cash App generated $17M in profits off the sale of Bitcoin last quarter, more almost triple last quarter's profits of $6.7M. These profits only comprise 2.85% of the company's total quarterly profits.
Why it matters:
Cash App is one of the fastest-growing consumer finance platforms in the US, with 24 million users and an annual growth rate of 60%, and the majority of users are millennials. Cash App started as a way for people to send each other money, but now offers a variety of services including stock and Bitcoin investing. Cash App has built credibility and affinity among its user base, and as it grows, more and more people will have the ability to buy Bitcoin through a product they already know and trust.
Square competitor PayPal and it's subsidiary Venmo are lagging behind, and are expected to start offering Bitcoin investing by the end of this year. Cash App's success thus far with Bitcoin puts the pressure on for other consumer finance companies, and ultimately leads to more Bitcoin exposure for the everyday people who use these apps.
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In case you missed it:
JP Morgan reports that younger investors are buying Bitcoin as older ones are buying Gold. JPMC analysts commented on increased interest in alternative assets as the dollar's value decreases. Older generations are divesting equities and buying gold and bond funds. Younger generations are ditching their dollars for shares in tech companies and assets such as Bitcoin. Both Bitcoin and gold have increased in value significantly in the past few weeks.
A publicly-traded company worth $1.2 Billion is considering buying gold and Bitcoin to hedge inflation. MicroStrategy, a business analytics company similar to Tableau, stated in its earnings call that it's looking to buy $250 million worth of alternative assets, including Bitcoin. Its CEO stated, "gold, silver, and bitcoin are showing strength" and "it makes sense to shift our treasury assets into some investments that can't be inflated away or are less likely to be inflated away," citing a weak dollar as motivation for investing in gold and Bitcoin.
That’s all for today! We’ll be back again with another Ryze Recap.