Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square, took to the first of his platforms last week to announce that his second service now allowed most of its users to buy or sell bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s price has plunged nearly 40% since @jack’s tweet.
It seemed like a good idea back in November, when Square Cash, a peer-to-peer payments app that’s part of Square, said it was about to let users buy, sell, and hold the cryptocurrency. Square’s stock shot up 5% on the announcement, while bitcoin rose over 10%.
But, as any cryptocurrency trader will tell you, timing the bitcoin market is next to impossible. What seemed like a savvy move to embrace the future of finance in November looks a little less prescient today.