Block Selected for S&P 500, Driving Wall Street Capital into Bitcoin

In July 2025, Block, led by Jack Dorsey, officially became a member of the S&P 500 index. This fintech company, which owns the payment giant Square and the mobile finance app Cash App, is now among the 500 most representative publicly traded companies in the United States. In the following days, Block's stock price rose by 14%.

Joining the S&P 500 means that Block will become a must-have option in global mainstream investment portfolios. It is estimated that the size of passive funds tracking the S&P 500 exceeds $5 trillion. Based on Block's weight in the index, it is expected that more than $10 billion of traditional capital will be indirectly allocated to Bitcoin through holding Block stocks.

Unlocking the Trillion-Dollar Market

To understand the influence of Block, one must first view the S&P 500 as a "protocol" for capital allocation, rather than just a simple list of stocks.

The rules of this "agreement" are extremely simple: all index funds tracking it have the sole task of accurately replicating the components and weights of the index. They have no room for subjective judgment, as any deviation means tracking failure.

The way Block obtained this "protocol" ticket was precisely by passing its strictest profitability review—companies must have achieved profitability in both the most recent quarter and in their financial reports for the past whole year. This ticket represents the highest recognition from the traditional financial system of the viability of "Bitcoin-friendly" business strategies.

Looking back at the history of the S&P 500, it is essentially an evolutionary history of being forced to absorb emerging industries and acknowledge new business models. The inclusion of companies from Google (Alphabet) and Meta to Tesla marks Wall Street's capital machine's acceptance of these new business models.

However, the inclusion of Block has special significance. When funds buy into Block, they gain not only equity in a payment company but also a direct risk exposure of 8,363 Bitcoins on its balance sheet.

This change triggered a mechanical and irreversible capital flow. With Block's market value of about $50 billion and an estimated weight of about 0.1% in the index, this inclusion will lead to over $10 billion in "passive buying" in the short term.

It is even more noteworthy that most of this funding comes from pension and sovereign wealth funds that previously would not actively engage with crypto assets. This mechanical influx of capital bypasses the psychological barriers that traditional investors have towards crypto assets.

Block's Bitcoin Romance

To understand why Block is so firmly betting on Bitcoin, one must first understand the evolution of its founder Jack Dorsey's values. His career has revolved around a core issue: how to break the constraints that centralized institutions impose on individual rights.

From Square enabling small merchants to accept credit card payments, to Twitter's attempt to achieve the free spread of information, and then to Block's full commitment to Bitcoin, Dorsey has always been pursuing the transfer of power from the center to the edge.

Block's embrace of Bitcoin began at the product level. In 2018, its Cash App started supporting Bitcoin transactions, allowing millions of ordinary Americans to easily purchase Bitcoin for the first time, just like buying stocks.

In October 2020, Block announced the use of company funds to purchase 4,709 Bitcoins, with an investment of 50 million USD. In February 2021, it spent another 170 million USD to acquire 3,318 Bitcoins. The total investment from both rounds amounted to 220 million USD, holding 8,027 Bitcoins.

After 2023, the Bitcoin strategy will further deepen. Block has launched the "Bitcoin Blueprint" plan, announcing that 10% of the gross profit from its Bitcoin-related businesses will be used to purchase Bitcoin every month. This means that Bitcoin is no longer a static investment, but a dynamic engine deeply tied to the company's business growth.

Block has also launched an infrastructure development campaign around Bitcoin. Cash App integrates the Lightning Network, the TBD department develops decentralized protocols, open-source hardware wallet projects allow users to control their Bitcoin, and even invest in mining chips to enhance the decentralization of the Bitcoin network.

Jack Dorsey's Ultimate Goal

Block's business structure clearly serves Jack Dorsey's vision. Square and Cash App provide ongoing cash flow as traditional businesses, while these profits and users are funneled into Block's internal future departments:

On the software level, Spiral and TBD focus on building the underlying infrastructure for Bitcoin, developing projects such as the Lightning Development Kit (LDK) and Decentralized Identity (DID).

At the hardware level, the Bitkey wallet is committed to solving the Bitcoin self-custody problem, while the Proto department is developing an open-source Bitcoin mining system.

This type of investment is not just a one-way money burn, as the Bitcoin business itself is a powerful engine for user and revenue growth. During the peak of the bull market, Bitcoin trading alone generated $10.02 billion in revenue for Cash App, accounting for as much as 81.5%.

Challenges Facing Blockchain

Despite the bright prospects, Block still faces many challenges:

1. Technical dependency risk: The deep binding to the Bitcoin protocol means that any issues at the protocol level could have significant impacts.

2. Execution risk: Multiple innovative projects have high technical thresholds, and the commercialization prospects are still unclear.

3. Financial Performance: Revenue growth is slowing, and operating profit margin is below the average level of the S&P 500.

Conclusion

For the crypto world, Block represents a possibility: pushing Bitcoin from the margins to the center through construction and integration. This "Trojan horse" type of penetration may be more effective than any radical revolution.

However, when trillions of dollars in passive funds are "forced" to embrace Bitcoin, one question is worth pondering: is this the beginning of Bitcoin's conquest of Wall Street, or the prelude to Wall Street taming Bitcoin?