Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's payment company Block plans to gradually shut down its decentralized technology development subsidiary TBD and reduce investment in its music streaming platform Tidal. At the same time, the company will refocus on the development of Bitcoin (BTC) mining equipment and its self hosted cryptocurrency wallet.

In its third quarter shareholder letter, Block stated, "We are reducing our investment in TIDAL and gradually ending our TBD business, which gives us space to invest in our Bitcoin mining program. This program has a strong product market fit and a healthy demand pipeline, as well as our Bitcoin self custodial wallet Bitkey

TBD was created by Block in June 2022 with the aim of developing "Web5" (different from the more well-known Web3 concept) as a set of technologies to improve networks through decentralized identity, personal data storage, and verifiable data exchange capabilities. The company previously launched a new business entity called 'c=', focusing on improving the liquidity and routing of the Bitcoin Layer 2 scaling solution Lightning Network.

This restructuring is not entirely unexpected, as Block had previously stated earlier this year that it plans to lay off up to 10% of its workforce by the end of 2024, explaining that "our company's growth rate has far exceeded the growth of our business and revenue.

Block announced its third quarter financial results on Thursday, with total revenue of $5.98 billion, a 6.4% increase from the same period last year, but falling short of Wall Street analysts' estimate of $6.24 billion. The gross profit reached 2.25 billion US dollars, an increase of 19% compared to the same period last year. Among them, the gross profit of the point of sale intelligence system (POS system) Square was 932 million US dollars, an increase of 16% compared to the same period last year, and the gross profit of the payment application Cash App was 1.31 billion US dollars, an increase of 21%.

Although Block does not operate Bitcoin mining business, it sells equipment to companies engaged in mining. The payment company announced in April that it had completed the development of a three nanometer Bitcoin mining chip and is currently developing a complete Bitcoin mining system. In July, Bitcoin mining company Core Scientific announced that it will use Block's mining machines for mining.

Block is also more focused on its self hosted wallet Bitkey, which was launched on the market in March. At the time, the company stated that Bitkey not only provided standard wallet functionality, but also connected to cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and its own payment platform Cash App, allowing users to buy and sell Bitcoin.

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