Saylor & Dorsey At “Bitcoin for Corporations,” What Did We Learn?

Since he left Twitter, Jack Dorsey looks like a new man. A man on a mission without the constraints a billion-dollar business put around your neck. The key-note for MicroStrategy’s “Bitcoin for Corporations” event didn’t disappoint. In a curious change of pace, Michael Saylor served as an interviewer. He questioned Dorsey about Block and the company’s Bitcoin projects, and tried to get the most advice out of him for entrepreneurs looking to add Bitcoin to their businesses’ strategies.

Related Reading | How Jack Dorsey’s Bitcoin Defense Fund Can Defend Devs

What did we learn, though? A lot. Let’s go through some of the points and topics.

According to Dorsey, What Does Bitcoin Mean For The World?

First things first. Jack Dorsey’s Nirvana/ Satoshi t-shirt was the first item at hand. After the event, Dorsey was kind enough with the seller to share a direct link to it on Twitter:

https://t.co/M0EoCJcm33

— jack (@jack) February 1, 2022

Then, they talked about Block’s Bitcoin strategy. How can Bitcoin enhance your company’s performance? Well, in their case, they opened two divisions. An open-source-focused company called Spiral BTC, that developed the Lightning Development Kit or LDK, and an experimental arm called TBD that is developing a decentralized exchange for Bitcoin called tbDEX.

In today’s conversation, Dorsey let everyone know that the code will be open-source. That means, other people will be able to also put out their own decentralized exchanges for Bitcoin. 

What does Bitcoin mean for the world, though? According to Dorsey, the Internet now has a native currency. It isn’t controlled by any government, it’s open-source, and it’s transparent. Doesn’t have a single leader, and still, the development model, execution, and operations have been consistent. 

Bitcoin and Block, A Match Made In Heaven

Michael Saylor hits the nail on the head, “the theme here is financial inclusion.” That’s what the company behind CashApp, which also runs the already mentioned projects, it’s all about. According to Dorsey, the merchants were among the unbanked. Traditional finance only approved 40% to get Point of Sale equipment. With CashApp, the number is now close to 99%.

Dorsey also rumbles about what would have happened if Bitcoin existed when they created Twitter. “There would be a much healthier balance, on multiple business models at once instead of this overdependence upon one.” Since it didn’t exist, they had to go with advertising, and the issues it brings with it. Like the lack of privacy, and the whole surveillance capitalism thing. 

One of the evening’s themes is that Bitcoin is transparent. According to Dorsey, one can see the fees and understand them. In contrast, in traditional finance, those numbers are in a black box. That 40% of merchants that were fortunate enough to get Point Of Sale equipment, were usually overrun with unexpected charges by the credit card companies.

BTC price chart for 02/02/2022 on Bitfinex | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

Random Facts And Ideas By Jack Dorsey

• He thinks NFTs answer a real necessity, but “something in the manifestation and the implementation is completely wrong at the moment.” How does an artist gets paid? How does that artist connect with its fans? Those are questions Bitcoin can answer.
• CashApp is developing an open-source, non-custodial Bitcoin hardware wallet. Reportedly, it will be extra cheap, also.
• In El Salvador, they’re living the future. We will learn so much from the El Salvador experiment.  
• He set up an Antminer at his house. He mines with Slushpool, and the pool sends sats directly to his Munn wallet. Using Lightning, he can buy tacos with it. 
• That transaction is special because no government or bank was involved. Everything is self-regulated. We now have “an open protocol that I can see every single part right to the hands of the seller.” 

What does Bitcoin mean to corporations everywhere?

Invest in open-source development, is one of Dorsey’s more actionable advice. They did it with Spiral BTC, without expecting anything in return, and two years later Cash App’s Lightning integration is built on their framework.

The Lightning Development Kit or LDK guarantees that if a company needs Lightning, then they can integrate it very quickly. That increases the possibility of companies doing it. Before LDK, the probability was quite low because of how complex Lightning was to integrate.

Another actionable advice, even if your company has no use for Bitcoin “it’s worth your study.” According to Dorsey, he learned so much from just studying the network.  He also asks potential entrepreneurs to ask themselves if there are any practical applications between Bitcoin and their companies. And tells the world that “Providing services for it is the real value going forward.”

Related Reading | Jack Dorsey Focuses On Bitcoin After Stepping Down As Twitter CEO

To close the key-note off, Dorsey talks about Meta’s Libra/ Diem project. According to him, the project’s aim was “trying to get more and more people into the facebook ecosystem.” Because Meta tried to control everything, it resulted in “a lot of wasted effort and time.” If they had just plugged into the Bitcoin open network, they would still be in business. “The easier we make it, the better,” and facebook could’ve contributed. 

The Bitcoin open network “changes a lot, but you have to be open to not own the thing.” That’s a big mental leap to take, but as Dorsey concludes, “You don’t have to own it to get value from it.” Boom!

Featured Image Saylor and Dorsey screenshot from the video | Charts by TradingView