Square hiring crypto engineers, will pay in Bitcoin

US PayTech venture Square is recruiting crypto staff and is offering to pay them in Bitcoin, according to a tweet by CEO Jack Dorsey.

He announced that “Square is hiring 3–4 crypto engineers and one designer to work full-time on open source contributions to the Bitcoin/crypto ecosystem. Work from anywhere, report directly to me, and we can even pay you in Bitcoin! Introducing @SqCrypto.”

He added: “This will be our first open source initiative independent of our business objectives. These folks will focus entirely on what’s best for the crypto community and individual economic empowerment, not on Square’s commercial interests. All resulting work will be open and free.”

Square has taken a lot from the open source community and hasn’t given enough back, he admitted. “This is a small way to give back, and one that’s aligned with our broader interests: a more accessible global financial system for the internet.”

Square registered $166 million in annual Bitcoin revenue for 2018. It racked up over $52 million in Bitcoin sales for Q4, surpassing Q3 by $9 million and Q2 by more than $15 million. However, profit from this part of the business, which involves the consumer app Cash, was low, as purchasing costs account for the vast majority of revenue.

Last month, Dorsey said that he views Bitcoin as the internet’s native currency. “It was something that was born on the internet, that was developed on the internet, that was tested on the internet…It is of the internet.”