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BITCOIN

Square flips on Bitcoin payments for millions of US merchants

Friday, April 3, 2026 · from 3 podcasts
Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & E…Rabbit Hole RecapWhat Bitcoin Did
  • Square’s default-on Bitcoin and Lightning payments reach millions of US merchants instantly.
  • The move abstracts volatility and tax reporting, treating Bitcoin as a payment rail, not an asset.
  • Some Bitcoiners see its real-world utility as a hedge against fiat debasement for global conflict.

Square is switching on Bitcoin for millions of merchants. The Block-owned company has changed its system from manual opt-in to a default setting for eligible US sellers, enabling payments via the Lightning Network. As David Bennett noted on Bitcoin And, a customer can now pay any Square merchant in Bitcoin unless the seller has explicitly disabled the function. The integration is designed for abstraction: merchants receive US dollars, Square handles the conversion and the IRS considers Square - not the merchant - to have accepted the crypto. This positions Bitcoin as a usable payment infrastructure, not a speculative balance sheet item.

David Bennett, Bitcoin And:

- I can walk up to a square merchant today and unless that square merchant has purposely gone through the settings and turned off all Bitcoin functionality, then I will have the option to pay that invoice in Bitcoin or lightning.

- Square accepted the Bitcoin, not the merchant, which is an important distinction for the Internal Revenue Service.

The integration validates a core Bitcoin narrative: its utility as a tool for real-world value transfer. On What Bitcoin Did, Junseth argued against over-engineering the protocol for speculative futures, insisting Bitcoin must function primarily as a tool for transferring value today. Square’s rollout is a massive step in that direction, creating passive network expansion by removing merchant friction.

This practical adoption arrives as geopolitical tensions amplify Bitcoin’s perceived role as a hedge. On Rabbit Hole Recap, Marty Bent argued that as central banks devalue fiat to fund expanding global conflicts, "Bitcoin wins." The payment rail and the hedge thesis are converging; Bitcoin’s value lies both in its immediate use and its structural separation from a financial system funding what some see as a slide toward total war mobilization.

The move signals a shift from niche adoption to retail abstraction. The burden of action has flipped - now merchants must opt out, not in. For the average seller, Bitcoin becomes a background feature, the kind of frictionless augmentation that Junseth argued represents functional technology. The question is whether this quiet enablement will drive the everyday use that hardcore proponents believe is essential for Bitcoin's long-term value.

PaymentsAdoptionLightningMarkets

By the Numbers

  • 500,000Physical quantum bits needed to break Bitcoin encryptionmetric
  • 1,200 to 1,450High-quality qubits needed for quantum attackmetric
  • 41%Chance of quantum attack beating Bitcoin transactionmetric
  • 9 minutesTime to complete quantum attackmetric
  • 6.9 millionBitcoin in wallets with exposed public keysmetric
  • 284Bitcoin sold by Nakamotometric

Entities Mentioned

BitmainCompany
BLOCKSPACESCompany
ChainalysisCompany
SquareCompany

Source Intelligence

What each podcast actually said

Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News
Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News

When VCs Attack! | Bitcoin News • Mar 31

  • Square is automatically enabling Bitcoin payments for eligible US sellers, shifting from an opt-in to a default-on setting.
  • Square's rollout leverages the Lightning Network for near-instant transactions, abstracting volatility for merchants who receive USD.
  • David Bennett argues Square's automatic Bitcoin acceptance shields merchants from IRS complexities, as Square, not the merchant, accepts the crypto.
  • Nakamoto sold 284 Bitcoin for $20 million in March, implying an average sale price of around $70,400 per coin.
  • Nakamoto's sale came at a roughly 20% discount to its year-end 2025 valuation of $87,519 per Bitcoin.
  • Standard Chartered reports stablecoin velocity has roughly doubled over two years, with tokens now turning over about six times per month.
  • Standard Chartered maintains its projection that stablecoin supply will reach $2 trillion by 2028, generating $1 trillion in demand for US Treasury bills.
  • A proposed US Department of Labor rule creates a safe harbor for 401(k) fiduciaries offering crypto, covering a participant-directed market of $8.8 trillion.

Also from this episode:

Protocol (6)
  • A Google quantum AI paper claims breaking Bitcoin's encryption may require fewer than 500,000 physical qubits, below prior estimates of millions.
  • Google researchers designed attack methods requiring roughly 1,200 to 1,450 high-quality qubits, a fraction of earlier estimates.
  • The paper suggests a quantum attacker could have a 41% chance of beating a Bitcoin transaction by calculating the private key in about nine minutes.
  • Google's paper estimates 6.9 million Bitcoin, roughly a third of the supply, sit in wallets where the public key has been exposed.
  • The paper argues Bitcoin's 2021 Taproot upgrade expanded vulnerability by making public keys visible on-chain by default.
  • David Bennett suggests the quantum research, promoted by Nick Carter's Project 11, is a potential precursor to calls for faster Bitcoin blocks.
Mining (2)
  • The Mined in America Act proposes certified domestic miners could sell newly mined Bitcoin to the US government in exchange for a capital gains tax exemption.
  • The bill highlights a national security risk, noting 97% of specialized Bitcoin mining hardware is produced by Chinese firms like Bitmain and MicroBT.
AI & Tech (1)
  • Chainalysis is introducing AI-powered blockchain intelligence agents trained on over a decade of its proprietary transaction data.
Energy (1)
  • Brent crude oil was trading at $118.97 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate at $104.32 a barrel at the time of recording.
AdoptionRegulationMiningMacro
Rabbit Hole Recap
Rabbit Hole Recap

RABBIT HOLE RECAP #402: THE CREDIT RUNS CONTINUE • Mar 27

  • Bent says Bitcoin is the only exit ramp from a fiat regime that has become 'freer than free' for state economic control.

Also from this episode:

Fed (1)
  • Marty Bent argues central banks are tripping over themselves to devalue currency to keep the global financial system liquid.
Society (1)
  • Matt Odell says the current feeling of impending crisis compounds on itself, reminiscent of the early COVID atmosphere.
War (4)
  • Odell points to drone swarms and UAP sightings over US nuclear bases as potential domestic psychological operations.
  • The Pentagon raising the enlistment age to 42 and relaxing prior discharge rules signals a quiet mobilization for potential draft, according to Bent and Odell.
  • Ukraine's draft age climbing toward 65 provides a grim template for how nations exhaust manpower in prolonged conflict.
  • The state's endgame is securing two resources for total war: capital through currency devaluation and bodies through conscription.
WarMacroBTC MarketsBanking
What Bitcoin Did
What Bitcoin Did

Peter McCormack

The AI Future Is Overhyped. Why Bitcoin Still Matters | Junseth • Mar 27

  • Junseth warns against Bitcoin developers' 'autistic' dreams of over-engineering the protocol.
  • For Bitcoin to succeed, it must function as a tool for real-world value transfer today.
  • He argues speculative features and future-casting distract from Bitcoin's core utility.

Also from this episode:

AI & Tech (5)
  • Junseth argues the metaverse failed by trying to replace physical human touch with VR headsets.
  • Junseth dismisses the idea that prompting skill grants domain expertise needed to judge LLM outputs.
  • He states the language of every industry, from art to science, is best spoken by its own experts.
  • Technology's value comes from augmenting our navigation of the physical world, not replacing it.
  • Winners will be those who understand the physical sciences and use LLMs to accelerate work.
Society (2)
  • He calls the current tech narrative a 'brain rot' hangover from COVID, driven by a bedroom-dweller philosophy.
  • This philosophy fails because humans must elect to live in the world technology imagines.
Models (2)
  • Domain expertise is the only safeguard against machine hallucinations.
  • Junseth recounts LLMs providing chemistry formulations that would have caused massive explosions.
Safety (1)
  • Without foundational chemistry knowledge, a user cannot parse a model's dangerous errors.
ModelsSociety

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