Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ), a global technology company with a focus on financial services, announced on July 27, 2023, the appointment of Neha Narula, Director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, to its Board of Directors. This move further solidifies Block’s commitment to leveraging open source software and open protocols to transform the way people move money.
Narula, who has been serving as the Director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab since January 2017, brings a wealth of expertise in Bitcoin and open source technology to the board.
Prior to joining MIT, she held a position as a senior software engineer at Google. Narula also currently serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Innovation Advisory Council. Her academic credentials include a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Dartmouth College and a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT.
“I’ve long admired Block’s focus on building simple, cohesive products that empower people and communities to participate in the financial system,” said Narula. “We share core values around the power of open source software and the ability for open protocols to transform the way people move money. I’m honored and excited to join Block’s board of directors and contribute to the company’s purpose of economic empowerment.”
Block’s Head and Chairman, Jack Dorsey, expressed his enthusiasm about Narula’s appointment, stating, “Neha’s expertise in Bitcoin and open source technology is a great addition to our Board. Neha’s passion for building intuitive, scaled systems to move money across the Internet efficiently fits into our company’s purpose, and we’re excited to have her join our team.”
Block, Inc., formerly known as Square, Inc., is composed of Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, and TBD. The company is dedicated to creating tools that expand access to the economy. Its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services helps sellers run and grow their businesses.
With Cash App, anyone can easily send, spend, or invest their money in stocks or Bitcoin. Spiral builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects, while TIDAL provides a platform for musicians and their fans to connect more deeply. TBD is building an open developer platform to make it easier to access Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies without having to go through an institution.
Narula’s appointment to the board is expected to further enhance Block’s mission of economic empowerment through the use of open source software and open protocols.
TBD, a subsidiary of Block, has announced the launch of c=, a new initiative that aims to improve the Bitcoin Lightning Network. c= is a new endeavor that aims to improve the Bitcoin Lightning Network. The Lightning Network is a layer 2 payment network that aims to make Bitcoin transactions quicker, cheaper, and more reliable. Its primary function is to reduce the fees associated with Bitcoin transactions. From its inception, the network has been subject to unplanned expansion, with the acceptance of its services in the real world being the primary driver of its liquidity and capacity.
TBD wants to further extend the scope of the Lightning Network by offering more liquidity and routing services, and with the introduction of c=, they hope to accomplish this goal. The objective of the c= project is to enhance the architecture of the network in order to better facilitate the use of Bitcoin as a payment mechanism by the general public.
The Lightning Network is a crucial breakthrough for Bitcoin since it overcomes some of the difficulties associated with the original blockchain, such as sluggish transaction times and excessive fees. This makes the Lightning Network a vital addition to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Lightning Network transactions are peer-to-peer transactions that are more trustworthy, cheaper, and quicker than typical blockchain transactions. This is made possible by the addition of a second layer to the network, which is what the Lightning Network does.
Nevertheless, there are several difficulties associated with using the Lightning Network. Lack of liquidity is one of the primary problems, which might make it challenging to route transactions over the network. This is one of the fundamental challenges. Services such as c= come into play at this point. c=’s goal is to enhance the user experience by providing more liquidity and routing services. This will make it simpler for more individuals to use Bitcoin as a payment method and should encourage more people to do so.
Since it displays a dedication to developing the Lightning Network and making Bitcoin more accessible to a larger audience, the introduction of c= is an exciting step for the Bitcoin community. Services like as c= are vital for guaranteeing that the Bitcoin network is able to continue to satisfy the demands of users all around the globe as it continues its rapid expansion and widespread acceptance.
The Lightning Development Kit is Spiral BTC’s latest offering to the community. And to the world. The LDK is “The simplest way to integrate Lightning into your Bitcoin wallet.” It’s free to use and it contains building blocks that anyone can integrate with their product. The big news, however, is Jack Dorsey’s puppet. The company, Spiral BTC, released this video to promote the Lightning Development Kit’s release. And Jack Dorsey’s puppet stars in it.
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Is it hilarious or cringe? Opinions vary. One thing’s for sure, however, it captured the mase’s attention and got eyeballs on the Lightning Development Kit project. So, it definitely worked as a marketing tool and the Bitcoin community should cherish it. Even though the Spiral team says that the main layer is too slow, “sucks,” and it’s “painful to use.” Nothing could be further from the truth, layer one does perfectly what it needs to do. If you want speed and ease of use, just go up to layer two. That’s where the LDK lives.
Related Reading | Jack Dorsey: Square Could Build Bitcoin Mining System
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What’s The Lightning Development Kit?
Theproject’s documentationdefines it as:
“Lightning Development Kit (LDK) is a generic library which allows you to build a Lightning node without needing to worry about getting all of the Lightning state machine, routing, and on-chain punishment code (and other chain interactions) exactly correct. LDK tends to be suitable for use cases where a degree of customization is desired, e.g. your own chain sync, your own key management and/or your own storage/backup logic.”
On the Lightning Development Kit’s introductory page, they promise the product was “designed from the ground up to be easily customized to your application needs.” Also, “as lightweight as you need it to be and optimized to run on all embedded devices such as mobile phones, IoT devices, PoS terminals and more.” Also, and this is very important, the use the Muun approach and help you create a single wallet experience. What does this mean?
“No need to create separate Bitcoin & Lightning wallets, forcing users to backup an additional recovery phrase. Instead, we let you define your own wallet and create one unified experience.”
What’s Spiral BTC And What Else Do They Do?
The company used to be called Square Crypto. When Jack Dorsey abandoned Twitter to focus on other ventures, it change its name to Spiral BTC. The aim was to convey better what their mission is all about. “Bitcoin is the best money. It should be used like it. We build and fund free, open-source projects aimed at making bitcoin the planet’s preferred currency.” When all of this happened, our sister siteBitcoinist gave us the 411:
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“The year is almost at its close and as such companies have begun to make plans for the coming year. For Spiral, the year 2022 will be a year of expansion as it will be working on a number of projects in the new year. To do this, Spiral (formerly Square Crypto) plans to double the number of full-time developers in the coming year. Some of the projects the devs will be working on include the Lightning Development Kit (LDK), the Bitcoin Development Kit (BDK), the grant program, and the Bitcoin Design Guide and Community.“
That’s right, they sponsorthe fantastic Bitcoin Design Guideand already released aBitcoin Development Kitfor those who wish to build on layer one. They also give grants to Bitcoin developers, designers, and great projects like BTCPay Server, Lightning Signer, The Eye of Satoshi, and the widely used Mempool.
BTC price chart for 12/07/2021 on Gemini | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Other Jack-Dorsey-Led Bitcoin Projects
As soon as the rumor of Jack Dorsey leaving Twitter hit… well… Twitter,Bitcoinist ran a piecethat praised his contributions to the space and speculated on what he would do next:
“The allegedly soon-to-be former Twitter CEO is perhaps bestcompared to Hal Finneyin terms of the positive impact he has had on the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Both of have famously tweeted about “Running Bitcoin,” and both are now names nearly as synonymous with the top ranked crypto asset as Satoshi Nakamoto themselves. Finney’s legacy has sadly ended, but could Dorsey’s truly just be at the very beginning in terms of what the business entrepreneur could bring to the overall Bitcoin ecosystem?”
Related Reading | Is Hyperinflation Inevitable? Jack Dorsey Says It’ll “Change Everything”
Before that, Jack Dorsey’s other Bitcoin-focused company TBD announced its first big project. The tbDEX will be a decentralized exchange and liquidity protocol. When the company released the whitepaper,NewsBTC reported on it and describedthe project as:
“The tbDEX aims “to build bridges between the fiat and cryptocurrency worlds,” that much is clear. We still live in a Fiat world and, if Bitcoin is going to succeed, we need new, simpler, and cheaper ways to interact with said world. “There are serious challenges to realizing this vision. Fiat rails are regulated, and no interface with either the traditional monetary system or “real world” can be completely trustless.”
At the Bitcoin 2021 Conference, Jack Dorsey said “Bitcoin changes absolutely everything. I don’t think there is anything more important in my lifetime to work on”. And now, he’s laser-focused on it. Things are moving fast since he left Twitter. It wouldn’t surprise us if the tbDEX releases a working version soon. They didn’t announce any timeline, though. Only one thing’s for sure. When the decentralized exchange is ready for the world to see, TBD should use Jack Dorsey’s puppet to promote it.
Feature Image: Screenshot from the promotional video | Charts by TradingView
The first product of the Bitcoin-focused TBD will be tbDEX. A decentralized exchange that they deem “A Liquidity Protocol” in the recently released whitepaper. The Bitcoin network is permissionless, anyone with an Internet connection can jump in at any time. However, the Fiat world we live in is not. The banking system has endless requirements for participation, and those leave a high percentage of the population bankless and vulnerable. “We believe that the economy should be inclusive. We need to build on-ramps to this future where everyone can access and participate in the economy,” says TBD inthe post that announces tbDEX.
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A subsidiary of Jack Dorsey’s Square,they created TBD“with the sole goal of making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services” for Bitcoin. And now, they have a plan.
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What Is TBD ‘s Value Proposition?
The tbDEX aims “to build bridges between the fiat and cryptocurrency worlds,” that much is clear. We still live in a Fiat world and, if Bitcoin is going to succeed, we need new, simpler, and cheaper ways to interact with said world. “There are serious challenges to realizing this vision. Fiat rails are regulated, and no interface with either the traditional monetary system or “real world” can be completely trustless.”
So, what solution does TBD proposes? The tbDEX will allow participants to interact and transact with each otherlike Bisqand similar projects. However, TBD will also let users “mutually and voluntarily rely on trusted third-parties to vouch for the counterparty.” Inthe whitepaper itself, they contemplate that vv will be part of the network.
“PFIs can be, but are not limited to, fintech companies, regional banks, large institutional banks, or other financial institutions; PFIs have access to fiat payment systems and the ability to facilitate fiat payments in exchange for tokenized cryptocurrency assets or vice versa. In theory, a PFI could accept or produce cash or checks as a mechanism for effectuating fiat settlement.”
The tbDEX will provide financial institutions with tools for KYC and AML procedures:
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“The protocol will also carry the required regulatory-clearing information required by PFIs to conduct their AML and KYC checks before they provision liquidity to the wallet owner. However, the necessary information may vary based on the jurisdiction.”
Wait a minute… a decentralized exchange that requires KYC? What would be the point of that? Well, the protocol doesn’t require KYC procedures, but some institutions might. The good news is, participants don’t have to deal with those institutions if they don’t want to. They can just interact with each other and establish trust in other ways.
BTC price chart on Bitbay | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
The Cost Of Anonymity
This is where it gets interesting. According to the whitepaper:
“The tbDEX protocol facilitates decentralized networks of exchange between assets by providing a framework for establishing social trust, utilizing decentralized identity (DID) and verifiable credentials (VCs) to establish the provenance of identity in the real world.”
It’s important to notice that “the protocol itself neither collects nor records any personally identifiable information.” However, if a participant wants anonymity it’s his or her responsibility to optimize for it. Once again, the whitepaper:
“Our goal is not to maintain anonymity of transactions at all costs. Nor is it to undermine an individual’s ability to optimize for anonymity. Nothing in principle precludes anonymous transactions for financial privacy on the tbDEX network. A PFI could, in principle, require no VCs, but such transactions would represent a high degree of risk to the counterparties.”
To assume that risk costs money. It’s as simple as that. The announcement post puts it nicely.
“Transaction costs are ultimately driven by risk. At maximum anonymity, transaction costs will necessarily be higher; at maximum disclosure, they should be lower. This approach to price discovery allows the marketplace to find the right balance.”
Related Reading | Is Hyperinflation Inevitable? Jack Dorsey Says It’ll “Change Everything”
If You Have A Suggestion, Send It To TBD
The whitepaper is a rough outline of that tbDEX will eventually be.
“This initial draft of the whitepaper is meant to establish a conceptual understanding of the high-level design of the proposed tbDEX protocol. It should not be considered complete or final. It represents a proposed design for public comment.”
If you have any suggestions, contactTBD via Twitteror send thema pull request on GitHub.
Featured Image: tbDEX diagram from the whitepaper | Charts by TradingView
As NewsBTC informed,Square will develop a Bitcoin-onlyDecentralized Exchange. However, will they work in conjunction with Bisq, the “peer-to-peer trading network”? Jack Dorsey seemed to confirm that both organizations are going to start talking at the very least. Why does this matter? What makes Bisq special? Keep reading to find out.
Related Reading | Why Square Will Create New Bitcoin-Focused Company, According To CEO Jack Dorsey
The Tweets That Point To Bisq
Def! Cc:@brockm
— jack⚡️ (@jack) August 27, 2021
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Bisq answered that tweet with which Dorsey announced that his company’s TBD project would be to “build an open platform to create a decentralized exchange for Bitcoin.” The Bisq people claimed that they’ve been building their product “to be the go-to peer-to-peer DEX for bitcoin power-users.”Then, they offered collaboration, “Our heads together could result in something better than any of us could imagine.”
Dorsey answered “Def!” and copied Mike Brock, leader of the TBD project.
That exchange doesn’t guarantee anything, sure. But the organizations will meet, and they seem to share a lot philosophically speaking. The Bitcoin community, for its part, reacted under Jack’s tweet with a lot of “This is the way,” exciting .gifs, and Bisq praise.
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BTC price chart for 08/29/2021 on Coinbase | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Why Will Dorsey’s DEX Be Bitcoin-Only?
InNewsBTC’s announcement of Square’s Decentralized Exchangeproject, we quoted:
Jack Dorsey’s tweet quoted an extensive thread by Square executive Mike Brock, TBD project head, who outlined the potential development paths for the open-source DEX.
“We believe Bitcoin will be the native currency of the internet. While there are many projects that will help make the internet more decentralized, our focus is solely on a sound global monetary system for all. But including all requires a few pieces we think we are missing.” Brock said in one of his tweets.
This is in tune with ideas expressed by Dorsey himself.
The reason I have so much passion for #Bitcoin is largely because of the model it demonstrates: a foundational internet technology that is not controlled or influenced by any single individual or entity. This is what the internet wants to be, and over time, more of it will be.
— jack⚡️ (@jack) January 14, 2021
After all, Square created the Bitcoin-focused TBD “with the sole goal of making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services.”
Square is creating a new business (joining Seller, Cash App, & Tidal) focused on building an open developer platform with the sole goal of making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services. Our primary focus is #Bitcoin. Its name is TBD.
— jack⚡️ (@jack) July 15, 2021
Everything That Makes Bisq Special
A couple of years ago, Manfred Karrer, Bisq co-founder,spoke to CoinDesk.”The goal is to become as decentralized and censorship-resistant as bitcoin. That’s a very high goal and it took bitcoin a very long time to get there,” he said. OnBisq’s site, they claim that “Bisq is code, not a company.” And said software is “open-source and community-driven.” What else makes Bisq special? Well…
Related Reading | Running Bitcoin: Passing The Torch From Hal Finney To Jack Dorsey
First of all, “It’s software you run on your own hardware, which connects to other people running the Bisq software to facilitate trades.” Sort of like how torrents work.
Bisq does not hold Bitcoin or any national currency. All the deals are between “the trading peers themselves.” And Bisq only has minimal information about either of them. Also, “no data is stored on who trades with whom.”
And speaking about privacy. “All Bisq data is transferred over its own secure peer-to-peer network, which is built on top of the Tor network—no central servers.”
The service doesn’t require registration.
To grease the wheels, “Both traders are required to pay security deposits, which are refunded after trades are completed.”
Bisq doesn’t accept Paypal or credit cards because chargebacks are too easy.
Bisq eliminates “the need for trusted third party exchange services.”
The Bisq network “is fully peer-to-peer in that it requires no centrally-controlled servers and has no single points of failure.”
However, you should also know that someonehacked Bisq that one time, stealing $250K.
Featured Image by Jeremy Zero on Unsplash - Charts by TradingView
Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is building a decentralized exchange for Bitcoin (BTC).
The tech mogul broke the news to his 5.6 million Twitter followers on Friday after first announcing last month that Square was developing a new business, called TBD, focused on creating decentralized finance (DeFi) services for Bitcoin (BTC).
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We’ve determined @TDB54566975’s direction: help us build an open platform to create a decentralized exchange for #Bitcoin https://t.co/jHYWHy1qmu
— jack⚡️ (@jack) August 27, 2021
Mike Brock, general manager of TBD, says he believes Bitcoin will be the “native currency of the internet.” Brock argues, however, that certain goals must be achieved before BTC can serve as “a sound global monetary system for all.”
“Getting Bitcoin today typically involves exchanging fiat at a centralized and custodial service like CashApp or Coinbase. These on- and off-ramps to Bitcoin have a number of issues and aren’t distributed evenly around the world.
This is the problem we’re going to solve: make it easy to fund a non-custodial wallet anywhere in the world through a platform to build on- and off-ramps into Bitcoin. You can think about this as a decentralized exchange for fiat.”
Brock says that the team plans to develop an open-source, open-protocol, permissionless platform that TBD doesn’t control. He adds that they’ve been looking at RSK, a secure smart-contract platform.
“We’d love for this to be Bitcoin-native, top to bottom. And that’s leading us to consider things like RSKsmart.However, the gaps needed to build this may be too large, which would also have us consider other chains as a bridge.
Some of the gaps we currently see are around cost and scalability. Lightning is solving for this with payments. We need a [solution] for exchange infrastructure between digital assets, like stablecoins.”
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Square is planning to develop a new platform for decentralized finance called ”TBD.” The company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, made the news public through a tweet.
Non-custodial DeFi Platform
Jack Dorsey announced the development on Thursday, July 15, on Twitter with added details. Dorsey stated that they had decided to build an open developer platform to create non-custodial permissionless and decentralized financial services.
Square is creating a new business (joining Seller, Cash App, & Tidal) focused on building an open developer platform with the sole goal of making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services. Our primary focus is #Bitcoin. Its name is TBD.
— jack (@jack) July 15, 2021
He said that the entire development process of the platform will be open source and include roadmaps for anyone to monitor the entire process. The project is also significantly different from Square Crypto, which is independent in its activities and only receives funding from Square.
Dorsey also added that the project will be focused on Bitcoin and stated that a dedicated Twitter and GitHub account will be created for added information. TBD will become the fourth company in the Square ecosystem that includes payment company Cash App, Music streaming platform Tidal and Seller.
How will Square Fare with the Competition?
As expected, the announcement from Jack Dorsey elicited a response from the crypto community. One user commented that the new service could replace Ethereum, while others pointed at existing blockchains that offer similar services.
It is not known if the TBD project will be built on an existing blockchain or a native blockchain platform. However, it would face competition from existing blockchains like Ethereum, Cardano, and Binance Smart Chain that are favored by decentralized finance platforms.
Square could decide to make the service limited to institutions and leverage the growing interest for regulated DeFi products.
Growing Crypto Ecosystem
Square has continued to expand its activities within the crypto industry since it added bitcoin services to its popular Cash App platform. As a result, it regularly purchases large volumes of bitcoin and is one of the biggest payment processing companies in the world.
The company recently revealed that it would be developing a hardware wallet for bitcoin.
The announcement added that Square intended to build the wallet to make bitcoin custody more mainstream. Dorsey is a big fan of bitcoin and has suggested that Square will be exploring more services in the crypto industry. This latest development shows that the company is ready to take a major stake in the blockchain industry.
