Square Activates Paying With Dollars Over Bitcoin Lightning Networks Rails

Square is rolling out Bitcoin acceptance in every state across the US except New York and with that the prospect of skipping merchant processing fees if their customers pay with Bitcoin. Square is taking direct aim at the card payment networks and their bank partners, eliminating chargeback risk, and bypassing their fees. The twist is that customers need not even have Bitcoin and the merchants need not know much about Bitcoin. Instead, Cash App customers that have a cash balance in their accounts can simply pay a Square merchant with dollars using Bitcoin’s Lightning Network rails.

Customers that do in fact have Bitcoin can also pay a Square merchant using Cash App or any other Lightning Network compatible wallet such as Coinbase and also spare the merchant from a transaction fee. Block, Square’s parent company, is hoping that Bitcoin payments take off.

“It’s time,” tweeted Block CEO Jack Dorsey, “the independent and free currency is here.”

Block is going all-in on Bitcoin since Dorsey, a long-time advocate, financier, and evangelist for Bitcoin, is trying to shift the narrative of Bitcoin’s use-case in the public sphere back to everyday money and away from its current status as a Wall Street investment or digital gold. (The editor of deBanked has long claimed that Jack Dorsey is probably Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s pseudonymous founder). Block has even replaced its existing peer-to-peer Cash App network with the Bitcoin Lightning Network. That means Cash App users accustomed to using a $cashtag can now send/receive payments outside the Cash App network.

Square will also be enabling stablecoin payments via the Solana blockchain starting in early 2026 and will explore integrations with other blockchains but will remain Bitcoin-centric and dominant.