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Block to let users send and receive stablecoins in Cash App
The digital wallet Cash App is expanding beyond Bitcoin. The payments and banking platform will soon let users send and receive stablecoins, Miles Suter, Bitcoin product lead at the fintech Block, which owns Cash App, told Fortune. Access to stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar, will roll out early next year, said a Block spokesperson.
Suter did not say which stablecoins or which blockchains Cash App intends to support. “Our principles are to be chain and coin-agnostic right now, and to go where customers lead,” he said. “We’re not going to support 100 coins and 100 chains.”
He did add that each user will get a blockchain address associated with their account. Any stablecoins sent to that address will be converted into dollars within Cash App, and dollars sent out of the platform to a blockchain address will be converted back into stablecoins.
“If I were founding Cash App today, I would build it on stablecoin rails natively,” Suter said.
Bitcoin to stablecoins
Block, which also owns the customer checkout service Square, describes itself as a Bitcoin-first company. And its cofounder, Jack Dorsey, who is also the cofounder and former CEO of Twitter, is one of Bitcoin’s biggest bulls. That Dorsey and Block would consider support for stablecoins signals how even the most adamant of Bitcoin hardliners can’t ignore the recent buzz for the crypto assets.
Over the past year, stablecoins have become one of the most hyped sectors in Silicon Valley outside of AI. In February, the fintech giant Stripe closed a $1.1 billion deal to acquire the stablecoin startup Bridge. In July, President Donald Trump signed into law the Genius Act, which provides a regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers. And in October, the payments giant Mastercard entered into acquisition talks with the stablecoin companies BVNK and Zerohash.
“I think Bitcoin is so unique, but I want to make sure I’m aware of everything that’s going on in the space,” said Suter, the Bitcoin product lead at Block.
In addition to announcing its intention to add stablecoins to Cash App, Block said Thursday that Cash App users will be able to pay merchants in Bitcoin. Customers won’t need to hold the cryptocurrency in Cash App. Rather, after a customer scans a QR code from someone who does accept Bitcoin, the platform will automatically convert the customer’s cash into the cryptocurrency and send it the merchant.
