Twitter has considered holding bitcoin, but not decided yet

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is known for his enthusiasm for bitcoin and has said he believes the internet will have its own native currency

Twitter Inc has thought about whether to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet, but has not made any changes yet, the social media platform’s chief financial officer, Ned Segal, told CNBC on Wednesday.

In an interview with CNBC, Segal said Twitter had considered how it might pay vendors or employees using bitcoin, should they ask to transact using the virtual currency.

We might consider whether we would be transferring dollars to bitcoin at the time of the transaction or if we wanted bitcoin on our balance sheet ready to complete that transaction, Segal said.

Segal’s comments come a few days after Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc revealed that it had bought bitcoins worth USD 1.5 billion and plans to accept the cryptocurrency as a form of payment for cars – a development which saw the price of the crypto currency surge.

Responding to a question about accepting bitcoin as payment for vehicles, Chief Executive Mary Barra of General Motors, said: This is something we’ll monitor and we’ll evaluate. If there’s strong customer demand for it in the future, there’s nothing that precludes us from doing that.

But Barra denied investing in bitcoin, saying: We don’t have any plans to invest in bitcoin. Full stop there.

Shares of Twitter rose 11 percent on Tuesday after the company beat Wall Street targets for quarterly sales and profit and forecast a strong start to 2021 as ad spending rebounded.

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, who is also the chief executive of payments firm Square Inc, is known for his enthusiasm for bitcoin and has said he believes the internet will have its own native currency.

Earlier in October, Square said that it had purchased nearly 4,709 bitcoins at an aggregate purchase price of USD 50 million.