In brief
- Dorsey called stablecoins a leap “from one gatekeeper to another.”
- Block’s Cash App is building stablecoin support into its core payment flow.
- The company’s AI push has already cost 4,000 employees their jobs.
Longtime Bitcoiner and Block Inc. CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has very reluctantly gotten onboard with the idea that the company’s customers are embracing stablecoins.
“I don’t like that we’re going to support stablecoins, but our customers want to use them,” he told Wired. “I don’t think it’s wise to go from one gatekeeper to another.”
Dorsey’s hesitant embrace of stablecoins isn’t exactly a heel turn, but it is a departure from his allegiance to the first and largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Dorsey is the kind of BTC aficionado who has compared the Bitcoin white paper to “poetry.” During the same 2020 podcast interview, he told MIT research scientist Lex Friedman that he takes comfort in knowing that Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto has remained pseudonymous.
“I think it was smart not to do it anonymous, not to do it as a real identity, but to do it as a pseudonym,” said Dorsey, “because I think it builds tangibility and a little bit of empathy that this was a human or a set of humans behind it. There’s this natural identity that I can imagine.”
He founded the Crypto Open Patent Alliance in 2020, which would later challenge and win in court against computer scientist Craig Wright’s “false narrative” about being Nakamoto.
During the same interview with Wired, he was very careful to clarify that Block aligned itself with Bitcoin—not crypto more generally—“because I believe the internet needs an open protocol for money transmission.”
Block has embraced Bitcoin in multiple ways, including offering Bitcoin buying and selling through Cash App, enabling Bitcoin payments via its Square merchant terminals, and developing a hardware wallet and modular mining rig system.
The stablecoin mention likely refers to something Block Business Lead Owen Jennings said during the firm’s earnings call in February. During the call, he told investors that the company is in the process of rolling out its new core payment flow.
“Critically, that’s connected to Moneybot, and then it also is the flow that is built to support stablecoins,” he told investors. “So [we’re] continuing to tweak things there and get that rolled out to 100%.”
Moneybot is an agentic AI assistant integrated into Cash App by Block. It was launched in late 2025. The company has said the “always-on” assistant will deliver “contextual insights and actionable suggestions based on customers’ in-app activity.”
The integration of agentic AI has come at the cost of roughly 4,000 jobs, however, or 40% of the company’s staff, as announced in late February.
“Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company," Dorsey said in a letter sent to staff and shared on X. "A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better.”
Disclaimer: The information on this page may come from third parties and does not represent the views or opinions of Gate. The content displayed on this page is for reference only and does not constitute any financial, investment, or legal advice. Gate does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information and shall not be liable for any losses arising from the use of this information. Virtual asset investments carry high risks and are subject to significant price volatility. You may lose all of your invested principal. Please fully understand the relevant risks and make prudent decisions based on your own financial situation and risk tolerance. For details, please refer to
Disclaimer.
Related Articles
NYSE Welcomes Morgan Stanley’s MSBT Launch as First Spot Bitcoin ETF Issued by a Major US Bank
Bank-backed bitcoin ETFs are accelerating institutional adoption and strengthening market credibility. The NYSE marked a new milestone as Morgan Stanley Investment Management rang the closing bell and celebrated the launch of MSBT, which the NYSE described as the first spot bitcoin ETF by a major
Coinpedia3h ago
BTC falls 0.49% in 15 minutes: fragile long leverage and active sell-off pressure resonate to weigh on the short term
From 18:00 to 18:15 (UTC) on 2026-04-17, the BTC price fluctuated and trended downward within the 77097.4 to 77573.2 USDT range. Over these 15 minutes, the return rate recorded -0.49%, and the amplitude reached 0.61%. During this period, market trading was active; short-term volatility was amplified, and trading attention increased significantly. The main driver behind this abnormal move is that the overall leverage structure is bearish and long positions are fragile. At present, the BTC perpetual contract funding rate has remained negative for 11 consecutive days, indicating that the bears have the upper hand in the market. In addition, futures open interest (OI) is about 628.3 billion USDT, which is at a historical high. During the anomaly window, trading volume increased noticeably. On-chain data shows large amounts of BTC flowing from long-term holder addresses to exchanges, suggesting that active sell orders may have triggered longs to passively reduce positions, amplifying downward price pressure. Moreover, institutional positioning enthusiasm in the mainstream contract market has cooled off; liquidity boundaries have tightened, causing large-trade activity to have an amplified effect on market volatility. In the options market, implied volatility rose to 39.81%, increasing demand for downside protection and reflecting a defensive posture among market participants. Macro-environment volatility and some capital flowing into safe-haven assets, together with the recent regulatory uncertainty-related historical events, reinforced the move, pushing overall market risk appetite lower. Current BTC leverage risks still remain. If, in the future, there are concentrated sell-offs, volatility may be further amplified. It is recommended to continue monitoring sustained high OI levels, the persistence of negative funding rates, and on-chain transfers of large amounts of funds, and to stay alert for whale behavior and any disruptions to market sentiment caused by macro-policy developments. For subsequent price action, please watch key support levels, institutional and whale on-chain moves, and relevant global market news, and guard against short-term risks.
GateNews4h ago
Bitcoin Liquidations Hit $815M as BTC Surges Above $78K Amid Iran Strait Opening
Over $815 million in leveraged cryptocurrency positions were liquidated recently, mainly due to short positions against Bitcoin. Markets improved as Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz and Trump hinted at a deal with Iran, boosting Bitcoin prices significantly.
GateNews4h ago
Cardano Founder Hoskinson Warns BIP-361 Could Freeze 1.7M Bitcoin
Charles Hoskinson warned that Bitcoin's BIP-361 upgrade, meant to address quantum threats, is wrongly classified as a soft fork. It could freeze 1.7 million BTC, including 1 million from Satoshi Nakamoto, as early coin owners can't prove ownership.
GateNews5h ago
BTC drops 0.45% in 15 minutes: Whale concentrated transfers into exchanges stack up sell pressure while leverage withdrawals amplify the pullback
From 17:00 to 17:15 (UTC) on 2026-04-17, BTC saw a brief drop. The return rate recorded was -0.45%, with the price ranging from 77354.3 to 77916.9 USDT and a swing of 0.72%. During the event, market attention warmed up, volatility intensified, and spot market liquidity changed significantly.
The main driver of this price anomaly was that whale wallets concentrated transfers to exchanges. In a single 15-minute period, the exchange inflow surged to 11,000 BTC, reaching a new high since December 2025. The average amount deposited per transaction was as high as 2.25 BTC, indicating that large holders chose key price levels to concentrate and release their positions, clearly lifting sell pressure. At the same time, BTC futures open interest fell to a 14-month low of $841 million, as leverage funds exited sharply. The spot market’s pull on price fluctuations became the main factor, further magnifying the impact of whale trading.
In addition, although ETF funds had a net inflow with a hedging effect—bringing the April cumulative inflow to $5.651 billion—within this anomaly window they were not able to fully absorb large sell orders. The spot market mainly relied on institutional buying to digest the selling pressure, and overall risk appetite contracted. On-chain data shows that 41% of the BTC supply is in a loss-making range, and some holders who bought at lower prices face take-profit and stop-loss pressure. With multiple factors converging, short-term tension formed among exchange inflows, leverage withdrawal, profit realization, and institutions’ ability to absorb, increasing the magnitude of spot volatility.
Short-term risks are worth watching closely. Users should closely monitor core indicators such as the subsequent exchange inflow volume, the pace of ETF net inflows, and futures open interest. If whale sell orders still have not eased and ETF inflows cannot accelerate in step, the BTC price may remain under sustained pressure. Users should focus on on-chain transfers and changes in major holders’ positions, watch the spot market’s key support ranges and trading structure, obtain more market information in a timely manner, and stay alert to risks brought by sharp volatility.
GateNews5h ago
