"For us, it’s about building useful stuff for customers.” @owenbjennings spoke with @theinformation about how we’re rethinking how we work with AI agents so our teams can focus on making the right calls for our customers. More here: theinformation.com/articles/rebui…
When anyone can generate ideas, taste matters more. @brooke_h_ellis joined @FastCompany to discuss discernment, creative judgment, and deciding what’s worth making.
Say less 👀
Brad Wrage@bradwrageTeam is on fire. Never have I seen us spin up something so fast at such a high bar for quality, demo'ing every week. Can't wait for ya'll to see it.
People are the edge.
The concept of money has been around for at least 5,000 years. Yet, the topic of money brings up more questions than answers for many. From how it works, how it doesn't work, to what is within reach for people. That makes no sense. Maybe that's why Bitcoin has opened up new conversations about money. Our new awareness campaign, Bitcoin Does, is to help Americans understand money, Bitcoin, and what it can do for them in everyday life. For the curious: t.co/wsecfLzwth
Bitcoin at Block@BitcoinatBlockSome things don't make sense. Bitcoin does. block.xyz/bitcoin/does
[Field notes] @AmritaAhuja in London with our UK team, investors, sellers, and local leaders. - South London: visiting Lulu's, a deli-by-day, wine-bar-by-night, and Archie's, a full-service Latin American restaurant, to hear directly from sellers - Westminster: meeting advisers at No 10 Downing Street to discuss supporting small business growth and expanding access for consumers across the UK - The London office: welcoming our newest cohort of field sales reps - Local media: sharing more on Block's presence across the UK and Europe
Look who it is 👀 🐝 Welcome @buzzdotxyz
The New Rules of Great Design ft. @brooke_h_ellis, Block's Chief Design Officer. Watch the full conversation with @FastCompany: fastcompany.com/video/91608007…
Autonomy over everything.
Bitcoin Policy Institute@bitcoinpolicyFreedom Tech DC: Open Intelligence with @Jack - Open source is a boon for global innovation - AI will reshape company structures + how @blocks operates - Instead of slowing down, we should open more - Government should fund compute - The cypherpunks built Bitcoin in the open -- we should build AI the same way (00:00) — Introduction & Why Open Source Matters (03:50) — From Goose to Buzz: AI Collaboration (05:28) — Rethinking the Company structure in the AI Era (09:47) — Three Roles: Contributors, Outcome Owners & Coaches (13:01) — Open the Frontier: Permissionless AI Innovation (19:29) — Openness, Safety & the Fear of AI (24:20) — Government’s Role: Shared Compute & Access (29:53) — The Punk Ethos: Build, Fail & Learn in Public
People are the edge.
Block has joined the x402 Foundation, an open standard for agentic payments, to help build the rails that will let people, businesses, and agents pay and get paid. We’ve also contributed Bitcoin Lightning payments, which is purpose-built for the instant, low-cost, high-volume payments that agentic commerce will depend on. More here: t.co/99nllIZNTa
[Field notes] @owenbjennings at @theinformation AI Agenda Live shared more on the layers to building Block as intelligence company: - Our world models are deepening what we understand about our operations and our customers - How agent loops are helping teams ship faster - Why model agnostic is the way to go
A few updates to Buzz.
Wes@wesbillmanBuzz Desktop v0.5.24 🐝 Give each agent a shared channel conversation or separate conversations for each thread. Plus clearer setup, remembered Inbox filtering, better startup recovery, and fixes for agent avatars across communities. github.com/block/buzz/rel…
Shared context sets the pace. On The AI report, Block's Head of AI Capabilities @bradleyaxen talks AI memory, the thinking behind Buzz, and why the future of work is multiplayer. Watch here: youtube.com/watch?v=a3662l…
An open source team moved its day-to-day development into Buzz. Across matched workweeks, MeshLLM merged 56% more PRs and cut median merge time from about 7 hours to 4. More on the setup, data, and caveats from our engineering team: engineering.block.xyz/blog/shifting-…
Field notes from the @FastCompany Innovation Festival, where @brooke_h_ellis joined “The New Rules of Design” panel: - Protect designers’ ability to imagine and dream - Ideas can be expressed faster than ever so the question now is what to build, and when - Prediction: intelligence will become the product - The new premium is trust and authorship
Freedom.
jack@jackSometimes you have to draw outside the lines.
cam worboys@camworboysWe don’t have strict brand guidelines at @CashApp Work like this is why. We flex the brand to fit whatever we’re building. This was for kids accounts. Keep a few things consistent. Logo, green, type. Everything else can move.
Demos of both Berd and Buzz from our On The Block Investor Relations series. Full conversation here: youtu.be/chTQ21FjpJg?si…
Reminder: artists can sell music and merch on @Tidal
rsa@rsaMerch live on @tidal! Love to see records for sale
Your words are always welcome @JustinDanks
Justin Danks@JustinDanksAfter a recent promo, @camworboys & co peer pressured me into drafting a few words about design. I joke as much as the next guy about making rectangles, but it's important (and humbling) to remember the impact we have on peoples lives. Here is an excerpt:
Our 2025 Business Sustainability Report is out now. It covers how we measure and manage our impact across Block’s operations, products, and partnerships. Full report here: s29.q4cdn.com/628966176/file…
What’s new for artists on Tidal by @rsa
rsa@rsaMore for independent artists on Tidal.
Tidal@TIDALTidal is the most artist-first option for Direct-to-Fan Sales 💯 Starting today, our share for Upload and merch sales will all go to the artist. - 0% goes to Tidal when artists sell music and merch - Upload is free to use and available now - Merch stores are in beta More here: t.co/2CQIgZIM4z #tidal #tidalupload
Come join fellow builders at the Open Source AI Summit on September 10-11 in San Francisco. Powered by Buzz. Apply for a ticket: opensourceaisummit.org
Presidio Bitcoin@PresidioBitcoinThe Open Source AI Summit will be powered by Buzz! Athena is the summit's shared agent. She’s here to help attendees navigate the event and champion open-source AI. Ask her anything, or bring your own agent. Apply for a ticket today.
A wise one once said, build in the open and you'll start hearing the Berd or the Buzz. 🧵some of the people designing and building both.
John Sullivan Hamilton@hamsToday we open sourced our no 1 used internal tool, berd. An agent where you can byo harness/models while keeping your work and context in one place, in an unhinged environment where you can build your dream team of agents. Try it out at berd.xyz!
We often build the tools we need ourselves. Berd is the desktop application our teams use to work with AI agents across projects, skills, tools, and models. Today, we’re making it open source and sharing what we’ve learned. Meet Berd, AI with character: block.xyz/inside/designi…
AI agents can feel abstract. Berd gives them roles, skills, tools, and distinctive visual identities. Berd is now open source. Download it, try it with your own agents and workflows, and share what you make: berd.xyz
How to configure agents in Buzz engineering.block.xyz/blog/configuri…
🐝🧵 Buzz updates from the team: - Buzz Mobile v0.8.0 and Desktop v0.5.9 - A new operational status page: status.buzz.xyz - Join us at AGNTCon + MCPCon Europe in Sept 👀
💿What's new on @Tidal. x.com/rsa/status/208…
We're on board with Open Weights AI. Building and supporting open models gives more people access and fosters economic empowerment for all. block.xyz/inside/why-blo…
How Buzz for Mobile works🐝 x.com/_tombrow/statu…
🐝🧵Buzz updates by the team from the past few days: - Buzz Desktop v0.5.0. - Room for different agents. - Buzz for mobile devices.
A lot of buzz about Buzz this week. A 🧵 of what a few people are saying and making...
How we build. x.com/camworboys/sta…
We've been named to @CNBC's World's Top Fintech Companies list in the Payments category. This year we've been in go mode, and this recognition reflects it. We're building intelligence and interfaces for our customers with urgency and purpose across Square, Cash App, and our broader ecosystem. Full list here: t.co/a9tlqBhfxn
We're building at every layer. Our Head of AI Capabilities Brad Axen talks Buzz with @thenewstack. What Buzz is, why it's open, and why now: thenewstack.io/block-buzz-age…
A preview of Buzz...buzzing 🐝
Where people and agents work together. Come test the early stages with us at buzz.xyz x.com/jack/status/20…
How we build. x.com/camworboys/sta…
When an AI agent acts on your behalf, it shouldn't become you. Think of a pizza delivery driver, where they get just enough information to complete the delivery to your address, not sign you up for cat fact mailers. Our engineering team published a deep dive on what we built to solve this: t.co/qUZDHT1Vyo
The @spiralbtc flock is growing. Today, the @goose_oss developers at Block joined Spiral, expanding our open-source R&D team beyond open money and into open intelligence. x.com/spiralbtc/stat…
The flock is growing. We built goose to make agentic AI open and accessible. Today, its core developers join @spiralbtc, our non-profit R&D lab where we build open source alternatives to money and now intelligence. More in the thread ⬇️ x.com/spiralbtc/stat…
The flock is growing. We built goose to make agentic AI open and accessible. Today, its core developers join @Spiral, our non-profit R&D lab where we build open source alternatives to money and now intelligence. More in the thread ⬇️ x.com/spiralbtc/stat…
We built an internal AI system called Builderbot. It coordinates agents across our entire codebase. Engineers tag it in Slack, and it researches, plans, and ships. The story so far: - 200,000 operations per day. - 1,500 pull requests merged per week. - 15% of all production code changes across Block. What used to take months now takes days. How we built it: t.co/ixvmNK87Du
The next generation isn't waiting for a first job to start earning: our Modern Earner white paper found that 42% of teens ages 12–18 are already earning through digital channels. "They grew up earning through platforms, managing multiple income streams, getting paid in all kinds of ways. The traditional model, one employer, one paycheck, that's actually the more foreign concept to them." More insights in @FortuneMagazine: t.co/uCaflhriaV
Income doesn't look the way it used to. In a new white paper, The Modern Earner Economy: How Changes in Earning Are Reshaping Financial Services, we dug into how earning is changing and why financial services need to catch up. Listening to signals from our network of 59M+ monthly active customers on Cash App. It examines how this shift emerged, what needs it creates, and what infrastructure is required to serve income that no longer arrives through a single payroll channel. Read on: t.co/SRKJSaWvI8
What do a cronut inventor and a tattoo shop started by a band have in common? Both are built on community, can be found in SoHo, NYC, and run on Square. The founders of Dominique Ansel Bakery and Live By The Sword Tattoo visited Block to tell us what's working, and what they'd like more of. Our internal Customer Calls series brings our team and customers together for honest signals on what to build next.
Intelligence is most powerful when it's grounded in governed data. Our teams are combining @AnthropicAI with @Snowflake to investigate compliance and security issues in real-time, automate workflows, and move seamlessly from analysis to action. x.com/Snowflake/stat…
We're building based on signals directly from customers. Inviting customers from across Block to speak to our team is one of the strongest ways we can learn and iterate with speed. It's part of our culture.
The perspectives of the next generation shape how we build the future of money. Yesterday, we hosted members of the Cash App Teen Advisory Council, along with students from Comp Sci High in the Bronx and the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan at the NYSE. Learn more: t.co/cgZ448lqyC
