Square beats in Q1 with revenue of $5.06B, up 266% YoY, with $3.5B in bitcoin revenue, up 11x YoY, gross profit of $964M, up 79% YoY, with $495M from Cash App
- The company reported a profit per share of 41 cents vs. 16 cents per share expected in a Refinitiv survey of analysts.
Context & Ripple Effects
Square’s Q1 report extends a run of accelerating reported revenue: its prior quarter included $1.76B of bitcoin revenue and $416M from Cash App, while an earlier quarter showed Cash App generating $875M in bitcoin revenue. The latest results put bitcoin at $3.5B of $5.06B in total revenue and Cash App at $495M of gross profit.
The key distinction in Square’s arc is increasingly between transaction-driven bitcoin revenue and gross profit. The company had already reported a Q4 revenue beat with substantial bitcoin and Cash App contributions; Q1 makes those businesses central to both its scale and how investors interpret its growth.
First-order effects
- Square exceeded the Refinitiv-survey EPS expectation, reporting $0.41 per share versus $0.16 expected, while gross profit rose 79% to $964M.
- Cash App supplied $495M of Square’s gross profit, and bitcoin activity supplied roughly two-thirds of reported Q1 revenue.
Second-order effects
- Square’s top-line comparisons become more sensitive to bitcoin transaction activity because bitcoin revenue is now the dominant component of reported revenue, even as gross profit provides a separate measure of operating momentum.
- Investors and analysts following Square will have stronger reason to separate Cash App’s gross-profit contribution from bitcoin-driven revenue growth when assessing subsequent quarters, including the following Q2 report's bitcoin impairment loss.
Third-order effects
- If Square continues to pair a large bitcoin-revenue line with expanding Cash App gross profit, fintech earnings analysis will increasingly prioritize revenue mix and gross profit over headline revenue alone.
- Square’s reporting trajectory points to consumer-finance platforms combining payments, app-based financial services, and crypto transactions, with each component contributing differently to growth and profitability.
The trend: Square is becoming a more diversified financial platform whose headline growth is increasingly shaped by bitcoin volume while Cash App gross profit signals the underlying business contribution.