'Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin': What People Are Saying About Dorsey Leaving Twitter

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, dropped a Monday morning bombshell by announcing he was leaving the company he-founded and has led since 2015. The news produced a stir since Twitter is such a high profile company, and because no corporate executive—with the possible exception of Elon Musk—has done more to raise the profile of Bitcoinand crypto.

In a letter explaining his departure, Dorsey cited his confidence that other Twitter executives can successfully run the company on their own and didn't mention crypto. But many on social media speculated that Dorsey made the move so he can devote more time to crypto and, in particular, Bitcoin:

Some speculated that Dorsey may step up his crypto ambitions through his work at payments company Square, which he also founded and where he remains CEO. The editor of TechCrunch suggested this could be because Square—which is building a Bitcoin wallet—is better positioned than Twitter to take the lead on Web 3.

Other observers noted that Dorsey appears to have been already been devoting more of his time and attention to Square:

As observers on Twitter have noted, it's an open question whether Dorsey's departure will lead Twitter to turn away from its recent pivot to crypto, which has included tipping with Bitcoin and plans for NFT integration. There is reason to think so based on the reaction of the market, which saw Twitter's share price soar more than 10% on today's news—an unusual reaction to a long-time CEO resigning.

The market reaction was not simply a vote on Dorsey's pro-Bitcoin stances, but rather reflected frustration with Dorsey by big investors who have long complained he lacked focus and caused Twitter to under-perform—a performance reflected in this graph:

Given this pressure from investors, it's possible that the incoming CEO, Parag Agrawal, may lead Twitter to prune its crypto efforts or even turn away from them altogether. But not everyone thinks this is the case given how Agarwal served as CTO of the company, and has led one of its flagship crypto projects known as Bluesky.

Finally, some called attention to comments in Dorsey's departure letter that he believed it to be critical for Twitter to break away from "its founding and founders" and for a company to "stand on its own, free of its founder's influence or direction."

Such sentiments are consistent with the decentralization ethos of Web 3 though, as observers noted, it's hard to discern what exactly this will mean for Twitter, Square and Dorsey himself.

The bottom line is that it's too early to tell what Dorsey's leaving will mean for Twitter or the broader crypto industry—though it's a safe bet he's far from done with Bitcoin.