Jack Dorsey’s popular financial company Square went through a recent rebrand and is now called Block[1]. The move led one of its subsidiaries, Square Crypto, to also take up a fresh name. Now known as Spiral, Block’s Bitcoin company has set out on a well-defined mission: to advance Bitcoin toward worldwide use.
What’s In A Name?
In its rebranding statement[2], Spiral noted that its original name had never fit it well. The inclusion of its parent company’s former name within its own led people to believe the connection between the two was stronger than it actually was, and this caused confusion around Square Crypto’s independence. Furthermore, the presence of “crypto” misrepresented its mission, the company said, since it is focused solely on Bitcoin. Spiral also alludes to Bitcoin as it continues to grow “like a spiral from a single point, encompassing more and more space until it touches everything,” per a Square tweet[3].
Despite coming under the umbrella of Block, Spiral operates completely independently of its parent company. Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Block and ex-CEO of Twitter, has little direct control over Spiral. The company’s lead, Steve Lee, told Bitcoin Magazine in a recent interview that “Spiral decides how our team runs, what we work on, and how resources are spent,” not Block or Dorsey.
Spiral’s sole goal is to enable Bitcoin to touch everything. Lee said that Spiral seeks to accelerate the adoption of Bitcoin by facilitating the work of developers building applications that interact with the monetary network. Ultimately, he explained, that can lead to better experiences for the end user — an essential factor for reaching high adoption rates.
“Spiral can accelerate adoption by creating development tools and infrastructure which make it easier for people
