Though Tidal is popular with artists, it has far fewer subscribers than rivals such as Spotify and Apple Music. That amounts to 56% of Square’s total quarterly sales, more than its older retail payments and non-crypto Cash app businesses combined. Given how Bitcoin’s price has increased since, it’s little surprising that revenue from that business rose nearly ninefold in the fourth quarter of this year to $1.8 billion. People using the app to buy and sell Bitcoin generated $217 million of revenue for Square in the fourth quarter of 2019. Helping Tidal musicians sell NFTs would also bring into play Square’s success with adding Bitcoin to its Cash app service. People who buy the tokens will get additional album art, bonus downloads, and other perks. Musicians are starting to look at NFTs too, with Kings of Leon planning on Friday to become the first band to release digital tokens tied to a new album. In just the past few months, the value of NFT transactions has grown to hundreds of millions of dollars. While a digital work can be easily copied, the NFT cannot, giving buyers a stronger sense of ownership. Those are the unique digital trackers created using blockchain technology that a broad range of artists have started attaching to their work and selling at auction. Could Square follow that strategy by moving beyond consumer payments to retailers into handling all sorts of consumer online transactions?ĬEO Jack Dorsey, who also partnered with Jay-Z on a Bitcoin investment fund, further elaborated on Twitter that the Square-Tidal mashup is focused on “finding new ways for artists to support their work” with “entirely new listening experiences to bring fans closer together, simple integrations for merch sales, modern collaboration tools, and new complementary revenue streams.”ĭorsey didn’t mention the elephant in the room, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Amazon, before it became the everything store, sold only books. Still, the deal could be significant for Square if it kicks off an expansion beyond its core payments business. They’ll retain a minority stake in the new venture. And Square said Tidal’s revenue, which it didn’t disclose, is so small that it would have no material impact on its financial results in 2021.īut it’s a big payday for Jay-Z, the star rapper, and the group of artists, including Beyoncé and Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who paid $56 million in 2015 for Tidal, then called Aspiro. On Thursday, the Jack Dorsey–led company brought that song metaphor to life, agreeing to buy a majority stake in niche streaming-music service Tidal for almost $300 million.Īt first glance, the deal is a blip for Square, which had $3.2 billion of cash on hand at the end of 2020. Shares in payments startup Square have been rising like a hit song on the Billboard charts for the past year, tripling in price and giving the company a market value of over $100 billion.
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