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Square Obtains New York State Cryptocurrency License (reuters.com)
The payment company Square has obtained a license to offer New York state residents the ability to buy and sell bitcoin through its Cash App, the company announced on Monday. "This makes Square the ninth firm to have obtained a so-called 'BitLicense' by the New York State Department of Financial Services," reports Reuters. From the report: To grant the license, the financial watchdog conducted a comprehensive review of Square's app, including its anti-money laundering, anti-fraud and cybersecurity policies, NYDFS said in statement. Square also holds a money-transmitter license from NYDFS. The San Francisco-based company, best known for selling a device that enables small businesses to accept credit card payments easily, first enabled bitcoin purchases on its app in other states in January.
Why use Bitcoin and not something like Ripple or Ethereum that has 1% or less of Bitcoin's transaction fees? The obvious answer is name recognition, people know what Bitcoin is. However, they could advertise Bitcoin, and then try to steer the actual users towards superior cryptocurrencies once they actually try to use Bitcoin.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.