Jack Dorsey’s Square changes its name to Block

Jack Dorsey’s mobile payments firm Square has announced a new name for the company, Block.

The new name will apply to the company as a whole, it said, comprising Square and the other businesses it owns – Cash App, the music streaming service Tidal and cryptocurrency business TBD54566975.

Mr Dorsey is well known for his interest in cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology that powers them, and the name change appears to suggest the business will have a greater focus on these areas in the future.

Block said it had chosen to retain the Square name because it had become synonymous with its mobile payment business, and instead wanted to highlight the company’s growth since its creation in 2009.

“We built the Square brand for our seller business, which is where it belongs,” Mr Dorsey said.

“Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.”

In its own statement on the change, Square said Block “references the neighbourhood blocks where we find our sellers, a blockchain, block parties full of music, obstacles to overcome, a section of code, building blocks”, and the name change had been in the works for about a year.

On Monday, Mr Dorsey announced he had resigned from his other major corporate role, as chief executive of Twitter, saying the social media giant was ready to move on from its founders.

The announcement is the second major tech rebrand in recent months.

In October, Facebook said it was rebranding as Meta, a new name for its parent company under which Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and its other services would sit.