finsmart-news_admin 
Jack Dorsey’s Bitcoin (BTC) fintech firm Block is about to join the S&P 500.
Block announced last week that effective July 23rd, the firm will be part of the top index, which tracks the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on US stock exchanges.
The tech billionaire’s firm was previously known as Square and is recognized for payment services like Cash App, and also launched a self-custody BTC wallet called Bitkey.
Additionally, Block owns the 12th-largest public corporate Bitcoin treasury in the world, holding 8,584 BTC worth around $1.01 billion at time of writing. The firm is sitting on a 286% unrealized profit on its BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net.
In April, Block settled with the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) amid alleged compliance issues with its Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) program.
NYDFS says Block committed lapses with how it operated Cash App, the firm’s peer-to-peer money transmission service that began offering BTC transactions back in 2018.
The regulator alleged Block failed to complete adequate customer due diligence and implement controls to prevent anti-money laundering and other illicit activities.
NYDFS also claimed the company did not promptly address severe transaction alert backlogs, largely due to rapid growth between 2019 and 2020.
The regulator alleged Block’s lax treatment of high-risk Bitcoin transactions enabled anonymous transactions to push through without proper scrutiny.
