Benzinga | Aug 5, 2020 07:15AM EDT

Square Reports Massive Q2 Earnings Beat, As Bitcoin Revenue Rises 600%

Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) beat analyst expectations in its second-quarter earnings report Tuesday, as its mobile payment service Cash App netted significant profit, including from Bitcoin.

Q2 Earnings: The Jack Dorsey-led company reported an adjusted earnings per share of 18 cents in Q2, down from the 21 cents posted in the similar quarter last year.

This significantly beat Wall Street estimates. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had estimated an average adjusted loss per share of 5 cents, as earlier reported by CNBC.

Square's net loss stood at $11.5 million, up 71.6% from last year's $6.7 million. Overall adjusted EBITDA was at $97.9 million, down 7% from 2019 Q2's 105.3 million.

Cash App Leads Charge: The company's largest revenue growth came with Cash App, which netted $281 million in gross profit on a total revenue of $1.2 billion.

Revenue through Bitcoin increased a whopping 600% for the payments app at $875 million. Bitcoin gross profit increased 711% YoY at $17 million.

The increase in both revenue and profits stemmed from a rise in customer demand. Square revealed that as of June, the app had 30 million monthly transacting active users.

The Cash App offers Bitcoin purchase, commission-free stock trading, and allows customers to send money on a peer-to-peer basis as well as make payments. It competes with Apple Inc's (NASDAQ:AAPL) Apple Pay, Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google Pay and PayPal Holding Inc's (NASDAQ:PYPL) Venmo in the space.

Dorsey's Personal Interest: Square CEO Jack Dorsey, who also leads Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), has long expressed his support for Bitcoin. In an interview with The Times in 2018, he claimed the apex cryptocurrency has the potential to become the world's sole currency by 2030. Dorsey personally invested in cryptocurrency startup CoinList in 2019.

Photo courtesy: Shardayy Photography on Flickr