Latest news with #JackDorsey
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Block, Inc. (XYZ): A Bull Case Theory
We came across a bullish thesis on Block, Inc. (XYZ) on Daniel Romero's Substack. In this article, we will summarize the bulls' thesis on XYZ. Block, Inc. (XYZ)'s share was trading at $58.74 as of 23rd May. XYZ's trailing and forward P/E were 14.26 and 16 respectively according to Yahoo Finance. Block Inc. is undergoing a pivotal transformation, evolving from a high-growth fintech into a vertically integrated ecosystem that bridges commerce, banking, consumer finance, and emerging technologies. At the heart of this shift are Cash App and Square—dominant platforms in their respective markets—now reinforced by a regulated bank, Square Financial Services, enabling more profitable in-house lending. Cash App serves over 57 million monthly users and has become a central financial tool for younger demographics, particularly with the integration of Afterpay. Meanwhile, Square is pushing deeper into business services, recently launching over 100 new features, including the Square Handheld POS, demonstrating a renewed focus on quality and innovation. Financially, Block is stabilizing, showing 9% YoY revenue growth (ex-Bitcoin), 28% adjusted operating income growth, and improving margins, signaling it is moving from a startup mindset to operating as a scaled platform. The most underappreciated asset may be Tidal, which under Jack Dorsey's vision could evolve into a 'Square for musicians,' integrating payments, royalties, and AI-powered tools for creators. Block's AI push is accelerating, with deployment of NVIDIA's new GB200 systems powering tools across its ecosystem—ranging from AI-assisted website builders and communications to the potential for AI-driven music innovation. Despite recent earnings-driven stock volatility, Block's ambitions to merge its products into a seamless, high-performance ecosystem—spanning business, consumer, Bitcoin, and AI—make its $36B valuation appear reasonable. If executed well, Block could emerge as a misunderstood giant, delivering durable long-term value by unifying commerce and finance with proprietary infrastructure and cutting-edge technology. Previously, we have covered Block, Inc. (XYZ) in March 2025, wherein we summarized a bullish thesis by Long-Term Pick on Substack. The author highlighted Block's strong 2024 growth in profit and cash flow, driven by Square and Cash App, with expectations for continued expansion and margin improvement in 2025. Since our last coverage, the stock is down 6% as of 27th May. Block, Inc. (XYZ) is not on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 76 hedge fund portfolios held XYZ at the end of the first quarter which was 81 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of XYZ as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than XYZ but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Square Sets the Table for Crypto-Fueled Caffeine Fixes
Girl/boy math is telling yourself that an $8 matcha latte costs just seven hundred-thousandths of a bitcoin. Soon, that conversion will matter because any shop that uses Square will be able to accept bitcoin payments. Square parent Block said it'll start supporting bitcoin later this year, reaching all 4 million of its sellers by next year. CEO Jack Dorsey said merchants can keep the bitcoin they're paid in or have it automatically converted to fiat currencies (like the dollar, peso, or pound). Previously, sellers could only do the opposite, meaning convert their fiat sales into bitcoin. READ ALSO: E.l.f. Soars After $1 Billion Pow(d)er Move to buy Hailey Bieber's Rhode and Omada Health Preps to Go Public as IPO Market Revives Square rival Stripe started supporting stablecoin transactions last year, acquiring stablecoin platform Bridge in February for $1.1 billion to strengthen its infrastructure. It's actually a circle-back for Stripe, which was the first payments company to process bitcoin in 2014 but discontinued its crypto offering four years later after running into low demand and high fees. PayPal, meanwhile, has been letting shoppers check out with crypto since 2021. PayPal launched its own stablecoin in 2023 and began allowing US businesses to buy and sell bitcoin on its platform last year. As payment platforms give millions of small businesses more exposure to bitcoin, big businesses are also piling into the digital asset — whose price popped 50% from last month to an all-time high of more than $111,000 last week: According to tracker, 114 publicly-listed companies now hold bitcoin, up from 89 at the beginning of last month. Together, they've amassed about $87 billion worth. GameStop disclosed yesterday that it bought $500 million worth of bitcoin to stash in its treasury. Similarly, POTUS Trump's media company said Tuesday it plans to raise $2.5 billion to build its own treasury of the in-demand digital asset. Hype Machine: Block announced its bitcoin expansion at Bitcoin 2025, an annual crypto conference where, last year, Trump said he'd make the US the 'crypto capital of the planet.' Hopes are high that crypto will enter the mainstream under Trump as regulators push for legal frameworks that could help it gain wider adoption (a stablecoin bill is imminent). At this year's Bitcoin 2025, VP JD Vance doubled down on the administration's support, saying the crypto industry needs regulatory clarity ASAP. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter.
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Business Standard
a day ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Rising cyber threats: Here is how to protect yourself from SIM-swap fraud
Our mobile phone numbers have become a de facto form of identification, but they can be hijacked for nefarious purposes. Just such an attack may have been involved in the recent very damaging cyber-attack on Marks & Spencer (M&S). The hack happened in April and forced M&S to stop taking online orders. It also caused disruption to some of its stores. The company has said that its online business could be disrupted into July and could result in an estimated £300m hit to profits. The M&S incident is being widely reported as an example of what is known as 'sim swap'. It's a form of fraud that is on the rise and understanding how to protect against it will help limit its impact. Our mobile numbers are unique and we have them for years. This means that users generally want to keep hold of their number when they change they phones, or lose them. When a user buys a new phone, or just a new sim card for a spare device they might have, they might call their service provider to transfer their longstanding mobile number to the new sim card. The problem is that the service provider doesn't know if it is really them calling to transfer the number. Hence, they launch into a series of questions to make sure they are who they say they are. But what if someone else has the answers to the questions the service provider asks? Is your mother's maiden name or that of your first pet really that secret? Easy pickings The rise of social media has made it easier than ever for scammers to piece together what was once considered private information. But this might not even be necessary. What if the service provider simply takes pity and falls for a tale of woe as to why you need to transfer the number but cannot remember an answer? Suddenly, someone else can make and receive calls and SMS messages using your number. This means they could make calls at your expense. However, it might seem logical that as soon as the service provider is informed of this, the provider should be able to stop it, and is likely to refund any fraudulent charges. However, there's a catch. Remember when you created your email, bank account or even online grocery shopping account and you were encouraged to set up two-factor authentication (2FA)? You listened, but the system set your 'second factor' as your mobile phone number. You input your username and password, and it asks for a time-limited code that it sends to you as an SMS message. If someone has managed to obtain your login username and password, typically through a phishing email or even a data breach, and they have control over your phone number, they now have everything they need to login to your account. This so-called sim-swap fraud is complex to pull off, but it is on the rise. Attacks rose by 1,055% in 2024, according to the National Fraud Database, and it has allegedly been used in many high-profile hacks such as that of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019. Effective counter-measures It is often used to target users who have high system privileges that gives them to access to systems that most users don't have permissions for. Imagine such a sim swap was carried out on a system administrator. These are the very people who set and reset passwords, grant access to computer systems and, most dangerously, can upload further software to the network and its attached systems. This has proved such a useful hack that some services are switching to sending that time-limited code to you to messaging services such as WhatsApp. However, this approach is not foolproof, and so there is a rising adoption of authentication apps, which display a synchronised code that matches one held by the service to ensure authenticity. Nothing is 100% secure, and the security of authentication apps, assumes that you have a separate, strong password to prevent those who have stolen your phone number from accessing these authentication checks. Efforts to improve login security have led to the rise of what are known as passkeys, which are long sequence of random digits called cryptographic keys that are stored on your device, such as a smartphone or computer. It is only shown to your online account when you unlock your phone. A key step in authentication is therefore the method the person uses to access their device. This could be a biometric authenticator like a fingerprint or face scan, or a screen lock pin number. Passkeys are more resistant to phishing attacks and data breaches than traditional passwords. So, the next time you phone your mobile service provider and they insist on asking a host of questions to prove your identity, don't complain, just think what could happen if they didn't do sufficient checks and someone carried out a sim-swap scam on your number.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Square Flies the Flag for the Lightning Network With 9.7% Yield on Bitcoin Holdings
Square, the payment platform owned by Jack Dorsey's company Block (XYZ) is earning a yield of 9.7% on its bitcoin holdings through running a node on the Lightning network. Block's Bitcoin product lead Miles Suter said that the firm is earning "real bitcoin returns from our corporate efficiently routing real payments across the Lightning network," in an appearance at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas on Wednesday. The yield is earned through Square's Lightning service provider c=, which was created two years ago to improve liquidity and efficiency on Lightning. Lightning Labs' Ryan Gentry referred to Suter's announcement as "the biggest news" at Bitcoin 2025 in a post on X, estimating that Square's 9.7% yield equates to around $1 million a year. For many years, bitcoin layer-2 network Lightning was hailed as the savior to BTC's problems of scale and speed by creating micropayment channels that can process transactions away from the main blockchain. Over time though some of these hopes have faded owing to Lightning's faults, such as the requirement for inbound liquidity, whereby users must in effect commit BTC in order to receive BTC. This may deter adoption by smaller-scale nodes, which is a hindrance to decentralization. However, Square sees the layer-2 as fundamental to its plans to accelerate BTC payments adoption, with one in four of its outbound bitcoin payments now processed on Lightning, Suter said onstage in Las Vegas. The company is piloting Lightning-based payments at Bitcoin 2025 with plans for a rollout to all eligible Square sellers in 2026. "When you enable real payments by making the. faster and more convenient, the network gets stronger, smarter and more useful," Suter said. "So if you're wondering if wondering if bitcoin is still just an asset, the answer is no. It's already an asset and a protocol and now Block is leading the effort to make it the world's best payment system."
Finextra
3 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
Block rolls out bitcoin payments on Square
Block is adding real-time bitcoin payments to its Square point-of-sale terminals. 0 The new feature - set to start rolling out later this year - leverages the Lightning Network to enable merchants to accept bitcoin payments directly through their Square hardware. To make a payment, customers scan a QR code at checkout, with the Lightning Network protocol ensuring near-instant settlement while Square's integration handles real-time exchange rate calculations and confirmation notifications. The native Bitcoin For Businesses offering builds on Block's Bitcoin Conversions feature launched in 2024, which allows qualified merchants to automatically convert a portion of their daily sales into bitcoin. Miles Suter, bitcoin product lead, Block, says: 'When a coffee shop or retail store can accept bitcoin through Square, small businesses get paid faster, and get to keep more of their revenue. This is about economic empowerment for merchants who like to have options when it comes to accepting payments.' Under bitcoin-fan founder Jack Dorsey, Block has embraced crypto with a range of services, including Cash App's bitcoin buy, sell, and transfer capabilities, the Bitkey self-custody bitcoin wallet, and the Proto suite of bitcoin mining products and services.
