Twitter and Square CEO: Bitcoin could one day become the internet's native currency

Twitter and Square Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey has expressed optimism about the role of cryptocurrencies in the future of payments, saying that “the internet deserves a native currency,” Bloomberg reported May 16.

At the Consensus conference on Wednesday, Dorsey shared with cryptocurrency enthusiasts his vision of a future where virtual currencies are a legitimate global payment method. He said he didn’t know if that cryptocurrency would be bitcoin (BTC), but “I hope it will be.”

Dorsey: “This technology is a fundamental shift in our world that can have so many positive outcomes. We have to do a good job of educating regulators and educating the SEC on why this technology is important.”

Square, a developer of payment and financial services solutions, began accepting BTC in 2014 and provided BTC trading services to almost all of its users in February of this year.

However, not everyone shares Dorsey’s enthusiasm for Bitcoin. He said, “This is a controversial move by the company and there is still controversy on this topic. Some people on the company’s board of directors are also resistant to cryptocurrencies.”

In early May, Square reported that the company’s first-quarter profit from BTC trading was low, at around $200,000. While BTC trading accounted for 5% of total revenue of $34.1 million, the company spent $33.9 million buying the token.

Dorsey’s recent speech reiterated previous comments that Bitcoin will become the world’s “single currency” within a decade.

He said: “The world will eventually have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency. My personal opinion is that it will be Bitcoin.”

Dorsey noted that currently Bitcoin is “slow, transaction-costly, and expensive per unit,” which makes it difficult to use as a medium of exchange. “But as more people own it, those things disappear.”