Block, Inc. began as Square in 2009, when St. Louis glass artist Jim McKelvey lost a $2,000 sale because he could not accept an American Express card. He and Jack Dorsey, who had just been pushed out as Twitter's chief executive, built a small reader that turned a card swipe into an audio signal a phone could read through its headphone jack. Square offered sellers one published rate and sign-up in minutes, instead of a bank merchant contract, credit checks and a rented terminal.
From card reader to seller software
Copycats arrived fast, from PayPal Here to Amazon's own reader, and a 2012 deal to process payments at about 7,000 Starbucks stores lost Square money. Square's answer was to sell more to each seller: point-of-sale software, Square Capital loans from 2014, payroll, online stores (built on Weebly, bought for $365 million in 2018) and, from 2021, deposits through its own Utah industrial bank. Square went public on November 19, 2015 at $9 a share. Today Square sellers pay 2.6% plus 15 cents on in-person U.S. card payments on the free plan, and Square's gross profit was $1.16 billion in the second quarter of 2026.
How Cash App became the bigger business
Square Cash launched in October 2013 as a way to send money by email. The Cash Card debit card followed in 2017, bitcoin buying in 2018 and stock investing in 2019, then direct deposit, Cash App Taxes and Borrow short-term loans. Cash App had 59 million monthly transacting actives in June 2026 and produced $1.97 billion of gross profit that quarter, up 31%. Its weak spot has been compliance: in 2025 the CFPB, state regulators and New York's Department of Financial Services imposed $295 million of redress and penalties over fraud handling and anti-money-laundering controls.
Afterpay, the Block name and bitcoin
In August 2021 Square agreed to buy Afterpay in an all-stock deal valued at about $29 billion, and in December it renamed itself Block. Dorsey also put money behind bitcoin: Block held 9,117 bitcoin at June 30, 2026, launched the Bitkey wallet in 2023 and began shipping Proto mining rigs in 2025. Bitcoin sales made up $8.50 billion of 2025 revenue but earn little, which is why Block reports gross profit, $10.36 billion in 2025, as its main measure.
The 2026 reset
On February 26, 2026 Dorsey cut Block from more than 10,000 employees to just under 6,000, saying AI let smaller teams do more. The first quarter carried the restructuring cost, then the second quarter delivered a record 27% adjusted operating margin and Block raised its 2026 gross profit outlook to $12.51 billion. Its 2028 target, set in November 2025, is about $15.8 billion of gross profit.
