Jack Dorsey whipped out his Bitcoin clock and Twitter went wild
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey caused mass confusion during his video call with the House Committee on Thursday.
Billionaire Dorsey was on the line to answer questions about the spread and impact of misinformation on social platforms like Twitter. But that’s not what got people talking.
It was his weird Bitcoin clock.
Eagle-eyed viewers spotted the quirky device sitting on his kitchen counter and almost immediately fired off questions.
Could it be telling the time in another country? Was Dorsey not where he claimed to be? Was he sending coded messages?
Or was he just boiling 200,000 eggs?
Turns out the answer is pretty straightforward.
The gadget in question is in fact a Blockclock Mini, a “Bitcoin art piece” from cold wallet manufacturer Coinkite.
The Blockclock can be set to show real-time updates on various Bitcoin stats, including its owner’s balance and Bitcoin’s value in a given currency.
But Dorsey appears to have set his Blockclock to rotate between the US dollar exchange rate of Bitcoin’s smallest unit the Satoshi (how many Sats one can buy for $1), and the block height of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Why Dorsey made a point of placing the clock in full view of the House Committee is anyone’s guess. It could just be where he keeps it, or he might’ve been making a subtle point about the state of the economy?
We know Dorsey’s a big Bitcoin fan. His fintech company Square added $170 million to its Bitcoin stash last month and holds 5% of its total cash reserves in the cryptocurrency.
On the other hand, he could just be showing off his new toy.
Twitter can be rough sometimes
But the reaction of the general public to such a peculiar clock proved an even greater spectacle.
One particularly amusing Twitter thread came courtesy of cyber-intelligence professional Chris Vickery, who immediately questioned the meaning of the clock’s obscure display.
Vickery speculated it was something to do with timezones, and even deduced Dorsey could be running on Russian hours.
[Read more: Dorsey sold his first tweet for $2.9M in Ethereum, but charity gets Bitcoin]
While it’s true that Blockclocks can tell the time like a regular clock, Vickery refused to acknowledge proof of the device relaying Bitcoin data. It’s worth checking out the whole thread — it’s a wild ride.