Square Inc. is changing its corporate name to Block Inc., signaling a push beyond the company’s main sales and payments products into businesses like music, cash transfers and the blockchain.
The company, co-founded and run by cryptocurrency enthusiast Jack Dorsey, will continue to call its seller product Square, and the new corporate identity won’t lead to any organizational changes. The company’s stock ticker SQ will also stay the same.
CEO Dorsey who resigned from the same role at Twitter Inc. earlier this week — has long wanted to build Square from a digital-payments company into a broader organization with a number of standalone business units. In that vein, Square recently acquired Tidal, the music streaming service led by rapper Jay-Z, and started a financial services division focused on Bitcoin called TBD54566975. (That unit’s name was derived from a positive numerology report linked to the number.)
The San Francisco-based company also owns Cash App, a consumer payments and investing product, and Square, its original sales and register service used by small businesses. As the company expanded, it became confusing to have a corporate name that overlapped with just one of its businesses. It’s the same strategy that social media giant Meta Platforms Inc. adopted last month, when it changed its name from Facebook Inc. to widen the focus from its flagship product.
