Block Pushes Past Payments Into Bitcoin, Banking and BNPL

Block, owner of Square and Cash App, is betting that the future of money won’t look a lot like its past.

Per its executive remarks during Thursday’s (Aug. 7) second-quarter 2025 earnings call, the FinTech platform’s ambitions are larger than payments. The company wants to be the place where people manage their financial lives end-to-end, and where sellers of any size can operate with the sophistication of much larger players.

In CEO Jack Dorsey’s words, the company is “back on offense.” The numbers tell the same story: double-digit gross profit growth, expanding margins and a raised full-year forecast. But what’s most interesting isn’t the earnings beat but the way Block is using its scale, speed and software to get inside the daily lives of customers, from teen Cash App users to mid-market coffee chains.

Square is leaning on its strengths: sleek hardware, robust software and a knack for making small businesses feel like they’ve got enterprise-level tools. In Q2, Square’s gross payment volume (GPV) grew 10% to $64.2 billion, with international growth of 25% far outpacing the U.S.’s 7%.

See also: Block Joins S&P 500 as Crypto’s Mainstreaming Marches On

Block Focuses on Blockchain Banking

Block’s consumer arm is no longer just a P2P payments app. Cash App’s leaders see it as a “financial operating system for the next generation,” anchored by four pillars. The first is a peer-to-peer network that connects communities; the second includes commerce tools that make spending and earning seamless; third are banking features to save, borrow and invest; and the fourth is bitcoin capabilities that turn crypto into “everyday money.”

Cash App, for example, processed $218 billion in P2P volume over the past year. P2P is the company’s low-cost growth strategy. Most new users join organically through friends, family or community connections, at a fraction of the customer acquisition costs competitors shoulder.

Block’s commerce network (Cash App Card, Cash App Pay, Cash App Business and Afterpay) handled $183 billion in spending over the last 12 months, up 16%. The company is personalizing Cash App Card offers and planning an “auto-selection” feature to help users unlock savings without extra effort. On the BNPL front, gross merchandise value hit $9.11 billion, up 17%, fueled by Pay-in-Four plans and new post-purchase options.

Block’s banking actives hit 8 million in June under a broader definition of account usage, up 16% year over year. Borrow, Cash App’s short-term loan product, grew originations 95% to $18 billion annualized. Even with that surge, margins held steady — a sign that the company’s underwriting is scaling without deteriorating quality.

At the same time, Cash App customers have bought and sold more than $58 billion in bitcoin since launch. Recent moves increased withdrawal limits, and Square sellers will soon be able to accept bitcoin payments that settle instantly in either crypto or local currency.

Later this year, sellers will be able to accept bitcoin directly through Square hardware, with settlement in bitcoin or local currency. It’s an extension of Block’s belief that payment choice will be a long-term differentiator.

Read more: Block to Enable Merchants to Accept Bitcoin Payments

Hardware, AI and a Push Upmarket

What Block is doing more deliberately now is making Cash App and Square work together. Cash App Business sellers can use Square’s Tap to Pay on iPhone. The same data and marketing tools that drive engagement on the consumer side are starting to appear in merchant-facing products.

The Square Handheld debuted in May, offering mobility for servers, retail associates and back-office managers. At the same time, Square AI launched inside the seller dashboard. Powered by company data and an in-house AI agent codenamed “goose,” it gives merchants instant insights — from top-selling items by time of day to spending patterns — through a conversational interface.

Mid-market sellers — those with over $500,000 in annual GPV — grew their volume 17% year over year. That segment now accounts for 44% of Square’s GPV. The sales push is backed by a field team hired late last year and a telesales team scaling globally.

Still, Block’s bets on Borrow, buy now, pay later and bitcoin payments each come with exposure to consumer credit cycles, regulatory shifts and volatile crypto markets. Any macro slowdown that hits discretionary spending could dent both GPV for Square and inflows for Cash App.

If the company hits its targets, it will end the year not just with bigger numbers, but with deeper integration across its platforms — and a tighter grip on the daily money flows of millions of people and businesses.