Square has opened Bitcoin payment acceptance to American retail outlets. The message appeared on November 11 at around 19:00 Moscow time.
What Square is. It is a payment service whose terminals and cash registers stand in ordinary stores and cafes and accept money from customers.
Why this concerns a trader. Part of BTC is beginning to move as a means of settlement, not only as a trading asset.
What exactly changed?
Previously, BTC at Square lived separately from the cash register. It could be bought and held.
- Before - buying and holding BTC with no connection to payment at the cash register.
- Now - cryptocurrency as a method of payment on the seller's side in the US.
- For the buyer - payment in BTC goes through directly at the cash register.
Who is behind this?
Jack Dorsey - co-founder of Twitter and head of Block. He is consistently building payment infrastructure around Bitcoin.
- Block - the company that is developing this infrastructure.
- Square - its retail part, the very one that stands in ordinary retail outlets.
Why is this important for a trader?
Payment demand is not the same flow as purchases by exchange-traded funds or corporate holders. It does not create one-off spikes in volume.
The main point: the very nature of BTC turnover is changing - part of the coins goes into settlements rather than into trading. If you are going to trade crypto on someone else's capital, check the list of instruments in prop firm challenges.
What's next?
The launch parameters and the coverage of retail outlets were not disclosed in the message.
- What to watch - whether payment acceptance will be expanded beyond the US.
- Where to look at crypto conditions - in the prop firm catalog.
Trading crypto on a second screen?
BTC news comes in a stream, while the turnover in the terminal keeps spinning the same. Before increasing volume through a prop program, look at the crypto conditions: some prop firms offer only spot without leverage, some are closed on weekends, and somewhere the instrument list contains exactly BTC and ETH. This is written in the regulations before paying for the challenge. Comparing programs by instruments is faster than later retraining your trading to fit someone else's restrictions.