Block (Square)

Block is the parent company of Square, Cash App, Afterpay, Tidal and TBD. Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey founded Square in 2009 after McKelvey lost a glass sale because he could not take a card. The company renamed itself Block in December 2021.

Square sells card readers and point-of-sale software to small businesses, along with tools for payroll, invoices and online stores. Cash App lets individuals send money, hold a balance, use a debit card and buy bitcoin. Afterpay offers buy now, pay later plans at checkout.

Block also owns the music service Tidal. Its Bitcoin-related work includes hardware wallets and mining chips through the Proto and Spiral projects. The company is based in San Francisco, with Jack Dorsey as chair and Amrita Ahuja as chief operating officer. Square Terminal and Square Register are among its hardware products, and sellers can also accept payments through a phone. The company has said it wants to make Bitcoin useful as a currency for the internet. Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange.