Jack Dorsey Net Worth, Crypto and NFT Investments

Jack Dorsey is well known for his connection with Twitter, and activeness in the tech space. The net worth of Jack Dorsey piled up as a result of his investment in the tech space. Before switching over to the tech space, Jack Dorsey worked as a fashion designer. 

He’s the CEO of payments gateway company Block previously known as Square. He co-founded Twitter in 2006 alongside some of his friends. He served as the CEO for years before leaving to focus on some projects. 

During this period, he co-founded Square with Jim McKelvey in 2009. The firm went public in 2015 before undergoing a renaming process to become  Block in December 2021. He returned in 2015, picking up the CEO of Twitter role from 2015 until November 2021. He stepped down from the board in May 2022.

He’s well-known as a philanthropist. In April 2020, he promised to give away $1 billion to Covid-19 relief and some other causes. The fund is about 28% of his net worth. Before then, Jack Dorsey gave out about one-third of his Twitter shares to his employees.

According to Forbes, the net worth of Jack Dorsey is $4.6 billion, making him the 624th richest person in the world. In 2021, Jack Dorsey was worth about $12.5 billion owing to the increase in the net worth of Block.

Jack Dorsey’s Net Worth

Early Life

Born as Jack Patrick Dorsey on November 19, 1976. Jack Dorsey has a partial Italian root through his mother, Marcia. His father Tim Dorsey is an American and he worked for a company that produced mass spectrometers. Jack Dorsey grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, his place of birth. His family is Catholic, and he has an uncle who’s a priest in Cincinnati.

His academic journey saw him attend Bishop DuBourg High School, St. Louis. There he developed an interest in computers and communications at an early age. He already began programming during his time at Bishop DuBourg High School. At the young age of 15, Jack Dorsey wrote dispatch software that is still in use by some taxicab companies in the world today.

While growing up, he sometimes worked as a fashion model. Jack hacked the website of New York City’s largest taxi dispatch company when he was 17. He contacted the CEO of the dispatch company and offered to help fix the vulnerability. Dorsey moved to the University of Missouri–Rolla in 1995, attending the institution for about two years. Thereafter, he transferred to New York University in 1997, but dropped out two years later. Jack Dorsey dropped out in his final year, with just a semester left to graduate.

Meanwhile, he conceived the idea of developing Twitter during his time at New York University. After leaving school, Jack Dorsey worked on dispatching as a programmer, before he moved to California. In 2000, Dorsey founded his company in Oakland to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the Web. During this period, he conceived the idea of establishing many other projects. Some of these ideas included networks of medical devices and a “frictionless service market”. 

It is worth mentioning that Dorsey also serve as a judge for Bloomberg’s NYC BigApps competition in 2011. In 2013, he expressed to CNN an admiration for Michael Bloomberg. Then, he revealed his desire of becoming the mayor of New York City. Later that year, Dorsey was announced as a new member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company. 

Twitter

In 2000, while building on dispatching, he was inspired by LiveJournal and AOL Instant Messenger to develop Twitter. The project hit the ground running as an idea for a Web-based real-time status/short message communication service. Seeing implementations of instant messaging, Jack Dorsey wondered if the software’s user status output could be shared among friends. He then approached Odeo, but the firm seems to be interested in Text Messaging alone at that time. It is worth mentioning that Odeo was co-founded by Noah Glass, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone co-founded Odeo, later renamed Obvious Corporation. 

However, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone concluded that SMS text suited the status-message idea. Owing to that, they built a prototype of Twitter. The initiative attracted numerous investors. The project launched fully on March 21, 2006, with Jack Dorsey as the CEO. Though he left two years later but he remained one of the top executives. At first, many made a mockery of Twitter. They regarded it as a tool for the shallow and self-centered to broadcast the minutiae of their lives to the universe. 

The project struggled to kick off fully. It mostly battled frequent service outages. However, the gradual usage of Twitter by many celebrities aided the growth and acceptance of the project. Top politicians like Barack Obama and John McCaind used Twitter exhaustively during their respective campaigns. 

Meanwhile, the usage of Twitter for political engagements pushed Jack Dorsey into the political landscape. On different occasions, he served as a State Department delegate to several areas battling with political instabilities. In 2015, Dick Costolo resigned as the CEO of Twitter, and Jack Dorsey assumed the position of interim CEO upon Costolo’s departure. Later that year, he was named permanent CEO on October 5, 2015.

In 2016, users of the microblogging app shrank due to the increasing competition. Due to that, In May 2016, Dorsey announced that Twitter would not count photos and links in the 140-character limit to free up more space for text. The move was aimed at attracting more users to the platform. During the year, Twitter suspended the account of its CEO, though Jack Dorsey downplayed the controversy stating it was an internal mistake. 

Again, Jack Dorsey left Twitter on November 29, 2021. He was replaced by the company’s former CTO Parag Agrawal. On April 25, 2022, Twitter agreed to a $44 billion buyout by Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. The deal is one of the biggest deals involving a private firm. In May 2022, Dorsey left the board of directors of the Microblogging app. 

However, Elon Musk attempted to back out of the deal. On July 8, Musk terminated the deal causing Twitter shares to plummet. Consequently, the firm’s executives sued Elon Musk in a bid to stop him from backing out. In October, Elon Musk completed the takeover at $54.20 per share summing it to $44 billion. Jack Dorsey retained his 2.4% ownership of Twitter after the takeover by Elon Musk.

Block (Square)

In 2009, Jack co-founded a second company, named Square. Square is a payment processing firm that processes card transactions through a Square card reader. The idea of the project came to life after a friend complained that he was unable to sell some of his merchandise because he doesn’t accept card payments. Jack Dorsey banked on this to establish Block.

Consequently, Jack Dorsey, along with co-founder Jim McKelvey, developed a small business platform to accept debit and credit card payments on a mobile device called Square. To carry out a transaction, the device must be connected to iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or Android device through the headphone jack. 

More so, Square is a system for sending paperless receipts via text message or email. Over the years, Square has grown from strength to strength. The firm grew from 10 employees to over 100 around June 2011. Within this period, the valuation of the firm grew to $3.2 billion with Jack Dorsey as the CEO. He owned about 24.4% stake in the company. In 2015, Square went public almost exactly two years after Twitter went public.

In March 2020 the FDIC permitted Square to open a bank. That year, the Covid-19 lockdown compelled Jack Dorsey to announce that employees of Square would permanently become remote workers. Also, the firm introduced the policy of withholding 30% of the funds merchants received from customers who used its cash app. 

After announcing plans to launch Square Financial Services in 2021, Jack Dorsey changed the name of the firm. On December 1, 2021, CEO Jack Dorsey officially changed the name of the platform to Block, Inc. According to the CEO, the transition was necessary due to the firm’s shift in focus to other businesses and innovations such as blockchain. During the year, the firm’s market cap topped $100 billion for the first time. With that, the net worth of Jack Dorsey received a massive boost. 

Donations

Aside from being a successful tech entrepreneur, Jack Dorsey is also famous for the various donations he has made to charitable courses. In March 2016, Dorsey fully funded about 600 Missouri public school projects registered at DonorsChoose. Likewise In October 2019, Jack Dorsey donated $350,000 to #TeamTrees. #TeamTrees is a nonprofit campaign started by YouTuber MrBeast that vowed to plant 20 million trees by the end of 2019.

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Dorsey made major headlines for another donation. Fulfilling the promise, he moved about $1 billion of his equity in Square, Inc., to Start Small, and LLC. Also, part of the funds went to relief programs relating to the coronavirus. During the Covid-19, he was committed to funding COVID-19 relief, girls’ education and health, and universal basic income.

When the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic struck India again, he donated $15 million to support relief efforts. He distributed the funds among three NGOs. These NGOs were Care ($10 million), Aid India ($2.5 million), and Sewa International ($2.5 million).

In total, Jack Dorsey has donated $24 million to over 40 different grantees for relief efforts. Aside from his effort in making life easy during the pandemic, the billionaire donated $10 million to Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, founded by Ibram X. Kendi.

Is Jack Dorsey Pro Bitcoin?

Over time, Jack Dorsey has proven to be an outspoken proponent of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The former Twitter CEO sees Bitcoin as a credible invention with the potential to replace the whole foundation of payment systems in the financial arena. In 2021, Dorsey attended a Bitcoin conference comprising notable actors in the crypto community. At the conference, he emphasized the growing importance of Bitcoin to the entire world. According to him, the largest crypto by market cap is beneficial to the entire world owing to the fact that it can be traded at any given time and at any where across the globe.

Dorsey is always aiming to harness his influence in spreading the gospel of Bitcoin, thereby fostering its global adoption. At a time, he encouraged investors to consider investing in the crypto, describing it as a long-term pathway to greater financial access.

One of the features that thrill Jack Dorsey about Bitcoin is the decentralized nature of its blockchain. Over time, the chairman of Block Inc has been a critic of “corporate control.” With Bitcoin’s decentralized network, Dorsey believes banks and its overwhelming influence in the financial arena will soon be fully relegated. Lauding the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, he said; “no one individual or institution has any more power over Bitcoin than anyone else.” According to him, Bitcoin possesses a “protocol that is resilient to corporate interests.”

As part of his commitment to ensuring global adoption of Bitcoin and other crypto assets, Jack Dorsey established the Bitcoin Academy in 2022. It is worth mentioning that the Academy was product of the partnership between him and renowned rapper, Jay Z. The Academy offers various online courses and in-person classes to spread awareness about crypto.

Mr @sc and I are funding The #Bitcoin Academy, a program for residents of Marcy Houses in Brooklyn New York where Jay grew up, designed in collaboration with @CryptoPlug3 and @BlkBTCBillions: https://t.co/hKfq1jqii7

— jack (@jack) June 9, 2022

Justifying the project, Dorsey emphasized the growing importance of Bitcoin as a tool for most of the people in Africa and Central and South America. He further the goal of the Academy is to “prove that making powerful tools more available to people enables them to build greater independence.” The former CEO added that the task of driving global adoption of crypto starts with education, stressing that the Academy would offer free courses to every Marcy resident.

Ever since the Bitcoin Academy has continued toempower its students with the necessary insights and knowledge about cryptocurrencies. In September 2022, the Academy announced its first set of graduates. These graduates were empowered with $1000 worth of Bitcoin by Jack Dorsey to kickstart their investment journey. This gesture alone established Dorsey as one of the biggest drivers of Bitcoin adoption across the world.

Education is where we start. This isn’t just about bitcoin…it’s about long-term thinking, local economies, and self-confidence. Courses are free to all Marcy residents, including kids. And to make it even easier we’re providing devices and data plans for all who need it.

— jack (@jack) June 9, 2022

Apart from founding an academy, Dorsey has also aided Bitcoin accessibility and adoption through his firm, Block Inc. According to our findings, the firm is notable for dealing with Bitcoin and provides enablement for users willing to trade the crypto. A few years ago, Dorsey announced that his firm was considering investing in a Bitcoin mining system.

Square is considering building a Bitcoin mining system based on custom silicon and open source for individuals and businesses worldwide. If we do this, we’d follow our hardware wallet model: build in the open in collaboration with the community. First some thoughts and questions.

— jack (@jack) October 15, 2021

He also collaborated with JayZ to establish an endowment, Btrust to enhance Bitcoin development in Africa and India. The duo invested 500 BTC in the endowment.

It is worth mentioning that Block Inc has a subsidiary, TBD which focuses on Bitcoin development. In 2022, Dorsey announced that the subsidiary will build an extra web5 on the Bitcoin blockchain. This thus means the web5 will rely on the decentralized Bitcoin blockchain to run optimally.

this will likely be our most important contribution to the internet. proud of the team. #web5

(RIP web3 VCs 🤫)https://t.co/vYlVqDyGE3 https://t.co/eP2cAoaRTH

— jack (@jack) June 10, 2022

Dorsey’s preference for Bitcoin to host the project should not be a surprise as the former CEO, has over the years, shown his preference for Bitcoin above others. Recently, he criticized Ethereum for having “one, if not many, single points of failure.”

Crypto and NFT Holdings of Jack Dorsey

As a Bitcoin bull, Jack Dorsey has a huge portion of his investment in Bitcoin. Dorsey’s exposure to BTC could be traced back to as early as 2010, making him one of the earliest investors in the crypto. In one of his interviews, he said the decentralized nature of BTC and its vast community fascinated him to venture into the token. However, till this moment, he is yet to publicly talk about the exact worth of his personal Bitcoin holdings. But, we rely on his revelation on March 23 that he usually adds to his Bitcoin holdings every week. According to our findings, he buys not less than $10,000 worth of BTC per week. No wonder the Block Inc chairman makes the list of famous Bitcoin investors across the globe.

Over time, Jack Dorsey has grown his net worth through his individual and institutional investment in Bitcoin, thereby building a reputation for himself as a BTC maximalist. Our findings indicated that the former Twitter CEO leveraged his firm, Block Inc to invest heavily in Bitcoin. Around 2021, the company held about 8,027 BTC, worth over $390 million as at that time. This thus earns the firm a place among the notable institutional investors in Bitcoin like Microstrategy, Tesla and many more. In 2020, Block Inc initially bought 4,709 BTC at an aggregate price of $50 million before purchasing an additional 3,318 at an aggregate price of $170 million. But, the bear market plunged the value of its overall Bitcoin holdings to $133 million in 2022.

The crypto trading platform of Block Inc, Cash App in its 2023 Q1 report recorded $2.16B in Bitcoin revenue, thus generating $50 million of Bitcoin gross profit. This represented a spike in its earnings when compared with its previous report which saw $1.83 billion in Bitcoin revenue. It is not in doubt that this revenue has a significant impact on the net worth of Block Inc and its chairman, Jack Dorsey.

Away from Bitcoin, Jack Dorsey is an influential figure in the NFT market. His major engagement in the industry could be traced back to December 2020 when he converted his first Twitter post into a non-fungible token. Then, Dorsey made the image of his five-word tweet into a virtual file on a blockchain. Barely a few months after auctioning the token, he sold it for $2.9 million. The buyer of the collection was one crypto entrepreneur identified as Sina Estavi. Meanwhile, the sale of the token only contributed little to the net worth of Jack Dorsey. Since Estavi purchased Dorsey’s token, he has been struggling to resell at an amount close to the price he bought it. According to findings, bids for the token have been less than $10,000.

Jack Dorsey’s Net Worth – Our Verdict

We have been able to break down the net worth of Jack Dorsey, with key emphases on his various investment portfolios. Our findings reveal that Dorsey is an established tech visionary. He has registered massive investments in decentralized web technologies and his favourite crypto, Bitcoin. Dorsey’s romance with Bitcoin could be traced to 2010. Then, the former Twitter CEO said the decentralized nature of the crypto and its community principles drew his interest into it.

It is worth mentioning that he has, over the years, harnessed his influence to attract scores of investors into Bitcoin. Recall that he has a Bitcoin academy which he founded in collaboration with JayZ. Today, the academy is notable for educating and empowering potential investors in BTC. Dorsey’s admiration for Bitcoin has also impacted the businesses and operations of his firm, Block Inc.

Today, the firm has integrated Bitcoin into most of its units. Apart from this, Block Inc is on the list of notable institutional investors in Bitcoin. Certainly, Jack Dorsey has been able to grow his wealth and the net worth of his firm through investments in Bitcoin.

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