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Company

Square

Filtered to Controversies ×
168 articles rising

Block’s planned H2 2025 Lightning rollout would let merchants accept bitcoin through Square hardware, extending Square beyond conventional card payments.

Who they are

Square is Block’s merchant-facing payments and commerce business, appearing in coverage as the hardware-enabled checkout platform through which Jack Dorsey’s company connects small businesses to payment services, financial products and, increasingly, bitcoin infrastructure.

The recent arc

Recent coverage has shifted from Square’s standalone growth reporting to Block’s operational reset and product strategy. In August 2024, Block reported Square profit up 15% year over year to $923 million while raising full-year guidance; by late 2025, Square Head of Product Willem Avé was discussing Block’s 2024 restructuring, AI automation, crypto and Lightning.

The most consequential current product story is Block’s plan to enable bitcoin payments on Square in H2 2025 via the Lightning Network and Square hardware. That expansion sits alongside early-2026 reporting from Wired that Block employees described falling morale amid rolling layoffs and Dorsey’s push for generative-AI tools, making execution and organizational capacity a central part of the latest coverage.

The tension

Coverage circles a tension between Square’s effort to broaden merchant payments through bitcoin, Lightning and automation and the need to preserve trust and operational discipline in a tightly contested, regulated payments market. PayPal is a recurring peer, the DOJ’s Visa case explicitly named Square and PayPal as competitors allegedly constrained by Visa, and the CFPB’s larger-participant rule places Square among major nonbank wallet and payment apps facing supervision.

Why it matters

If Square can turn its existing merchant hardware footprint into a usable Lightning acceptance channel while maintaining growth, it could make crypto payments a more concrete part of everyday seller infrastructure rather than a separate Block experiment. But the reported layoffs and culture concerns, along with regulatory scrutiny across digital payments, leave open whether the company can deliver that expansion without weakening the merchant experience that underpins the business.

Square has appeared in 168 articles since 2014-12. Coverage peaked in 2023Q4 with 4 articles. Frequently mentioned alongside Jack Dorsey, Twitter, PayPal, Bitcoin.

Articles
168
mentions
Velocity
+50.0%
growth rate
Acceleration
-0.500
velocity change
Sources
44
publications

Coverage Timeline

2022-10-26
Protocol 2 related

Square's parent company Block sells access to customers' email addresses used to receive receipts, which privacy experts say falls short of best practices

When COVID-19 forced Compass Coffee to close down its Washington, D.C.-area shops, the roastery's owners turned to email to stay in touch with customers.

2021-09-22
Washington Post 1 related

On Saturday, Square's automatic tipping screen in its app disappeared for three hours due to a bug, costing restaurant workers and others hundreds of dollars

Baristas across the country said Square was not bringing up a screen allowing customers to add a tip.

2020-10-13
New York Times

As Americans flock to payments apps from PayPal, Square, and Zelle, rates of fraud are also rising according to app reviews, often with little support

Nathaniel Popper / New York Times : Tweets: @nytimes , @dgwbirch , @flitteronfraud , and @danawrey Tweets: @nytimes : “Fast payments equals fast fraud.” People are getting defrauded as they turn to S...

2018-08-12
Wired 2 related

Researchers find bugs in some mobile card readers from Square, SumUp, iZettle, and PayPal that allow manipulation or remote control via Bluetooth or mobile apps

Lily Hay Newman / Wired :

2018-08-11
Wired 2 related

Researchers find bugs in some mobile card readers from Square, SumUp, iZettle, and PayPal that allow manipulation or remote control via Bluetooth or mobile apps

THE TINY, PORTABLE credit card readers you use to pay at farmer's markets, bake sales, and smoothie shops are convenient for consumers and merchants alike.

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Quarterly Coverage

Top Sources

Narrative

Square has appeared in 390 tech news articles since December 2014. The biggest stories include Square starts shipping its chip card reader with Apple Pay support; Samsung Pay now... and MobileCoin Chief Product Officer Bob Lee, who worked on CashApp as Square's CTO and on.... Frequently covered alongside Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Key Moments

2024Q2consumer -50pts
2024Q3enterprise -82pts; developer +9pts; consumer -14pts
2024Q4enterprise -18pts; developer -9pts; consumer +14pts

Relationships

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