Square Inc reported a nearly 60% rise in third-quarter gross profit on Thursday, fueled by a jump in bitcoin transactions on its peer-to-peer payment service Cash App.

The payments firm, which is acquiring buy now, pay later pioneer Afterpay Ltd for $29 billion, posted gross profit of $1.13 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30.

Cash App generated $1.82 billion in bitcoin revenue, up 11% from a year earlier.

But San Francisco-based Square said bitcoin revenue and gross profit decreased from the previous quarter as relative stability in the cryptocurrency's price drove down trading activity.

The company, led by Twitter Inc top boss Jack Dorsey, has benefited in the past year from a pandemic-driven jump in demand for e-commerce from people staying at home.

Its gross payment volumes, a measure of the transactions processed on Cash App, rose 27% to $3.7 billion.

Total net revenue jumped 27% to $3.84 billion.

  - Reuters