Square Crypto Completes Inaugural Developer Team With Three New Hires

Square Crypto has hired Valentine Wallace, Jeffrey Czyz and Arik Sosman to its inaugural developer team.

The crypto-focused branch of Jack Dorsey's payment company announced the appointments in a series of tweets on Sept. 19.

Wallace joined the company from Lightning Labs, Czyz came from Google and Sosman from Facebook’s Libra. With the latest hires, Square Crypto said it has completed its inaugural developer team.

The next step: public opinion

The public is now being urged to participate in the decision-making process for its first project.

“There’s no project we won’t consider, as long as it improves or proliferates bitcoin,” Square Crypto wrote.

Square Crypto recently made a series of appointments, with Blockstream co-founder and Bitcoin (BTC) developer Matt Corallo and former Google product director Steve Lee becoming project managers. Lee subsequently made a number of remarks that solidify the company’s emphasis on Bitcoin.

Making Bitcoin stronger

Lee described Square Crypto as “an open-source initiative designed to strengthen the bitcoin ecosystem,” adding:

“Our goal is Bitcoin for all. We are focusing on improving the Bitcoin experience for mainstream users. The user journey will always be central to our thinking.”

Earlier in September, Square Crypto announced a grant to BTCPay Foundation — described as the first of many to support open-source Bitcoin projects. The startup provided BTCPay Foundation with $100,000 to support BTCPay Server, an open-source cryptocurrency payment processor.

Square Crypto went on to explain why they are giving a “bunch of money” to BTCPay Server, saying: “This isn’t an investment in a competitor, it’s an investment in the future of money — something that Square obviously has a stake in.”