Payment processing company Square has been granted a New York BitLicense, which enables them to operate a cryptocurrency exchange and allow New York residents to trade Bitcoin. Square is owned by Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, who has described Bitcoin as the currency of the future.

About Square

Square shares gained more than 3% following the news, as New York based users of the company’s app, which is called Cash, will soon be able to trade Bitcoin.

One of Square’s most popular services is as a payment gateway. They enable merchants to accept mobile payments using a small and handy dongle. They have added bitcoin support to this product, and opened up the Square app to allow users to trade Bitcoin.

New York BitLicense

New York has one of the most stringent regulatory frameworks for cryptocurrency trading, and this represents the first time that the BitLicense has been awarded outside the big industry players like Coinbase and Bitfinex.

Bitcoin gained approximately 5% in trading yesterday, and it is this level of volatility that Cash users will be able to access. For most Cash users, this has been possible since January, but New York’s notorious regulatory process and high applications costs have meant it was, so far, out of reach for residents of New York. The application was believed to have cost $100,000 in 2015, and the increase in market cap since then would suggest that the current fees would be much higher.

Jack Dorsey Bullish On Bitcoin

Square is owned by Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, who is known to be Bitcoin bullish. In May of this year, Dorsey said “the Internet deserves a native currency; it will have a native currency” but did go on to say that he did not “know if it’ll be Bitcoin or not.”

Dorsey has said that there are still board members that resist cryptocurrency, and that the decision to apply for a Bitcoin trading license remains a contentious one within the organisation.