Have you ever wanted to wave a magic wand at something and make it yours? Well, now you can, so long as you have enough money in your debit account to pay for it.
Cash App, the digital payments service operated by Block, has offered its users the ability to use free physical cards since 2017. Now, anyone with a Cash App card can pay $25 to turn that card into a pearlescent, sparkly magic wand. Anywhere you can use tap-to-pay with your phone or card, you’ll be able to buy something with a tap of the wand instead.
The wand is a whimsical way to introduce Cash App Tags, the company’s new hardware product. Tags are NFC-enabled physical devices that will eventually come in an array of shapes and sizes. They don’t have to connect via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. To link one to a Cash App account, you can just hold the device to the back of a phone, and it will link the wand to the account. (You’ll need to register a Cash App card first.) Then, the wand works like a debit card. Albeit a much more fanciful one that can be clipped to a keychain like a charm bracelet.
Courtesy of Cash App
Making a statement about your payments seems to be the point here. Thomas Templeton, Block's hardware lead, says that while digital payments have made buying things quicker and simpler, they’ve also made the purchasing process quieter, almost invisible. He thinks buying something should be fun—a conversation starter. Even Cash App’s cards, which he says people just keep in their pockets 90 percent of the time, aren’t flashy enough. The goal of the wand is to keep the payment tool “top of wallet.”
“At Cash App, we think payment should be just the opposite,” Templeton says. “It should be visible. It should be fun. And social and expressive.”
What a Wanderful World
I got a chance to wave the wand around to buy stuff for a couple of days. The product definitely works and grabs people’s attention. “Do whatever makes you happy,” the cashier at a coffee shop told me when I asked to pay with the wand.
My wand was declined trying to buy a bag of gummy bears at a smoke shop, but that's only because my card hadn't been properly set up yet. Once I got things going, I was able to tap the wand to pay for coffee, some Taco Bell, and a beer after work. (OK fine, during work. You got me.) I've paid my fare on San Francisco's Muni trains, tapping the wand and watching the entry gates part before me. For just $2.85, I felt like Gandalf.
“It’s just fun,” Templeton says. “Less from a Cash App business perspective, and more from a user perspective, it’s just delightful and fun and whimsical, and people like that.”
Whimsy is en vogue right now, embraced by younger generations as a sort of lifeline to finding decency and playful weirdness in what feels like an increasingly indecent and existentially terrifying world. Whimsy is also an easy thing to capitalize on, as brands adopt fun, lighthearted aesthetics as a way to appeal to audiences who seek that frivolity. You may have seen videos on TikTok of people attaching credit cards to homemade magic wands and using them to pay for things. They’re occasionally found in rave culture, so much so that you can find pages of 3D-printed versions of them on Amazon.
Courtesy of Cash App
Templeton insists the idea for the Cash App Wand was not inspired by the trend videos, but something Cash App came up with all on its own ages ago.
“We've been thinking about this for a little while now, but yeah, the last probably nine, 12 months we really, in earnest, we started working on this,” he says.
The wands are also a limited release, limited to about 10,000 before the company will move on to another “drop.” The idea is to test out different categories of Cash App Tag and see what users and potential business partners want to use them for. The Tags can be built very small, don’t need batteries, and can be resilient enough to go through a washer and dryer. Templeton says Block is hoping to eventually have them woven into clothing or put in jewelry. More drops of different product categories will arrive later this year.
Wanding Down
The whimsy does feel a little weird coming from Block right now. Helmed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Block used to be called Square before a name change in 2021. It has made some other changes since then, like slimming down its Square handheld last year.
This year, Block also slimmed down its own workforce, laying off 40 percent of its staff and contributing to an office culture that workers have called demoralizing and anxiety-inducing.
This made it a weird time to go into the Cash App office to meet with Templeton and see the wand for the first time. We sat there, Templeton, another Block rep, and me—three people at a table that looked like it could fit a dozen. In the main room, just a handful of people were scattered across the many desks in the office. It was all very quiet.
I fiddled around with this whimsical magic wand as I talked with Templeton. I couldn’t help but ask how the vibes at Block were these days. Does working here feel as fun and fanciful as the devices they’re building?
“Block’s doing great,” Templeton said. “We just had earnings. We’re shipping faster than ever. We’re moving like a startup again; it’s great.”
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