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.
Dorsey, who also founded and runs Twitter, announced Wednesday evening that Square plans to hire three or four engineers and one designer âto work full-time on open source contributions to the bitcoin/crypto ecosystem.â 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 Squareâs own commercial interests, but rather, âon whatâs best for the crypto community.â
Dorsey has long been a proponent of bitcoin, repeatedly saying he hopes that bitcoin will become the internetâs â and the worldâs â single native currency in the far future.
In Wednesdayâs tweet thread, Dorsey added that improving the crypto ecosystem seems to be âthe most impactful thingâ Square can do for the community, going on to say:
âSquare has taken a lot from the open source community to get us here. We havenât given enough back. This is a small way to give back, and one thatâs aligned with our broader interests: a more accessible global financial system for the internet.â
Squareâs 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.
Jack Dorsey image via U.S. House of Representatives