Quarterly figures well above expectations thanks to Bitcoin

The payment service providers Square and PayPal have presented their figures from the first quarter. The success of the crypto adaptation can be read more than clearly there.

The US financial services company Square reports that his quarterly result has significantly exceeded analysts’ expectations. One of the reasons given is the booming demand for crypto assets.

The analysts at Refinitiv, for example, had predicted that Square would make a profit of 16 cents per share in the first quarter of 2021. In fact, that profit was a full 41 cents. Square, owned by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, had sales of $ 5.06 billion. The analysts had assumed a profit of only 3.36 billion US dollars.

Bitcoin alone has already contributed $ 3.5 billion to company revenue, which is ten times more than in the same period a year ago. Square’s gross profit also increased significantly year over year to $ 964 million in Q1. More than half of the profit ($ 495 million) can be attributed to the crypto-friendly payment application Cash App. Given these numbers, Square CEO Jack Dorsey continued to give bullish views on Bitcoin’s potential:

Our focus is primarily on […] Bitcoin to enable its status as a native currency. It removes many unnecessary barriers to our business. And we firmly believe that it will create more opportunities for economic inclusion around the world.

Square was among the first to invest part of its assets in Bitcoin. In October 2020, FinTech bought 4,709 BTC for $ 50 million at the time. The value of this investment has now increased more than fivefold.

PayPal also exceeds expectations

The payment service PayPal also delighted investors with very good numbers, which is also largely due to the crypto adaptation. The figures from the last quarter of 2020 had already caused a stir. PayPal’s transaction revenue increased 33 percent in the first quarter to $ 5.62 billion from $ 4.22 billion a year ago. The company raised its forecast for the year accordingly. Compared to the previous quarter, transaction revenue fell slightly (Q4: USD 5.68 billion), but this is more likely to be due to the seasonal decline in vacation travel.

Part of PayPal’s transaction revenue came from the company’s crypto activities. The payment giant also managed to attract 14.5 million new active accounts. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman added Wednesday’s earnings announcement that PayPal had “several positive talks” on cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) with central banks, regulators and government officials around the world.