Square is Changing Its Name to 'Block'

A few days after Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter, his other company changed its name..

Square, the digital payments company Dorsey co-founded and remains at the helm, announced Wednesday that it is rebranding as “Block.”

Block will represent parent company Square (SQ), which will remain the name of the business providing software and services to sellers.

“We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs,” Dorsey said in a statement. “Block is a new name, but our goal of economic empowerment remains the same.”

The company’s ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange will remain “SQ” for now, he said, although the official name will change from “Square, Inc.” to “Block, Inc.” around December 10. The various brands currently under Square’s umbrella, including Cash App and music streaming service Tidal, will retain their respective names and organizational structures. Afterpay, an Australian company buy now, pay later which Square bought in August for $29 billion, was not disclosed.

However, there is one other name change. “Square Crypto, a separate initiative of the company dedicated to advancing Bitcoin, will change its name to Spiral,” the company said in a statement.

Square’s move follows similar rebranding by other big tech companies such as Google, which placed itself under parent company Alphabet in 2015. In a more recent example, social media giant Facebook changed its name to Meta (with a new logo) in late October this year. .

Square’s Twitter account (which will now move to the @blocks handle), appeared to poke fun at Facebook’s changes in a post on Monday.

“Not to get all the meta on you… but we will!” the @Square handle said before announcing its new name and a number of meanings associated with the new name.

“Blocks refer to the neighborhood blocks where we find our sellers, blockchain, music-packed block parties, obstacles to overcome, pieces of code, building blocks, and of course, the tungsten cube.”