Jack Dorsey’s departure from Twitter Inc.
TWTR,
as its chief executive has stirred up discussions about the future for the tech pioneer who is widely viewed as one of the biggest boosters for bitcoin and crypto.
On Monday, Dorsey announced that he was stepping down from the popular social-media platform and will be succeeded by Parag Agrawal, the company’s current chief technology officer.
A host of questions were currently swirling in the crypto-verse on the heels of the news, including: What does his exit mean for Twitter’s relationship with crypto? What does it mean for payment processor Square Inc.
SQ,
where Dorsey is also CEO? And what is Dorsey’s longer-term game plan for digital assets and blockchain?
As a staunch bitcoin
BTCUSD,
supporter, Dorsey has pushed forward several crypto-related endeavors at Twitter and Square.
In September, Twitter started allowing users to tip content creators using bitcoin. The platform is also rolling out a tool that would enable the use of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, as profile images.
Concerns that Twitter would be less crypto-friendly may be eased as Twitter’s incoming CEO Agrawal shares a similar vision with Dorsey for decentralizing social media, according to reports. In 2019, Agrawal took the responsibility of finding a team lead for Bluesky, a project that aims to build a “decentralized standard for social media”.
Some are speculating that Dorsey would spend more time on crypto-related projects after he steps down as Twitter’s CEO.
In June at the Bitcoin 2021 Conference, Dorsey said that “if I were not at Square or Twitter, I would be working on bitcoin.”
“If it [bitcoin] needed more help than Square or Twitter, I would leave them for bitcoin. But I believe both companies have a role to play,” Dorsey said then.
Earlier this month, Square released a white paper for a new decentralized crypto exchange known as tbDEX. In October, Dorsey said Square is considering building a Bitcoin mining system.
In the end, many are expecting Dorsey to remain a significant player in crypto regardless of his corporate affiliation.
At last check, the value of a single bitcoin was above $58,000, up over 6% on CoinDesk, while shares of Twitter were down 2.2% and off nearly 15.7% in the year to date, and those for Square were up 0.6%, off over 3.5% so far in 2021, according to FactSet data.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
