Twitter boss Jack Dorsey sets up bitcoin node to support cryptocurrency

Social media pioneer, who also heads the payments app Square, has invested heavily in bitcoin in recent years

CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey appears on a monitor as he testifies remotely during a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill, 28 October, 2020 in Washington, DC (Getty Images)

Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has set up a bitcoin node to support the underlying network of the cryptocurrency.

He is the latest in a number of high-profile figures to publicly pledge support for the burgeoning cryptocurrency, which has experienced massive price gains over the last year.

A sustained rally has seen bitcoin's price rise from below $5,000 (£3,650) last March to above $38,000 today.

The surging value has been driven by increased interest from institutional investors looking to diversify their portfolios during the economic uncertainty brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

Endorsements from the likes of Elon Musk have also contributed to sudden market movements, with the SpaceX and Tesla boss recently changing his Twitter bio to a single word: "Bitcoin".

In a recent Q&A session on the app Clubhouse, Mr Musk also iterated his interest and positive predictions for bitcoin.

"I do at this point think bitcoin is a good thing. I am a supporter of bitcoin," he said.

"I think bitcoin is really on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people."

The decision by Mr Dorsey, who also heads the online payments platform Square, to run a bitcoin node offers more concrete support for the cryptocurrency, as it provides the digital infrastructure needed to validate transactions on the network.

He shared the news on Twitter, tweeting a screenshot of the node in action alongside the caption, "Running #bitcoin".

In 2019, when bitcoin was experiencing plummeting prices, Mr Dorsey revealed that he was spending thousands of dollars each week on bitcoin in anticipation of a major market turnaround.

At the time, bitcoin was worth one tenth of today's prices.

"I think there's a massive acceleration that's going to happen within the next 10 years," he told the Tales from the Crypt podcast, adding that he was looking for ways to better support the bitcoin community.

"I don't wait around for that to happen to me or to us as a company [Square], I want to help make it happen. To me , it all goes back to the internet. What does the internet want to be? It wants a currency, it's always wanted a currency, it just hasn't had the technology until 10 years ago."