It turns out that supporting bitcoin is a profitable endeavor after all, at least for some companies: Payments startup Square Inc. booked $36.5 million in additional revenue thanks to its support for the cryptocurrency in its second quarter.

The number comes from Square’s quarterly financial report released Wednesday, which showed the company run by Jack Dorsey (pictured) booked net revenue of $814 million in the quarter, with bitcoin accounting for 6 percent of that amount.

Breaking that number down further, the actual profit for Square on supporting bitcoin was only $420,000 for the quarter but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

Square started testing support for bitcoin in November before rolling out full support to all its users in January. Notably, that support only consists of allowing users to buy and sell bitcoin as opposed to accepting payments in the cryptocurrency, although the company is pursuing a New York Bitlicense.

Overall, Square beat Wall Street’s adjusted revenue and profit expectations for the second quarter thanks in part to higher transaction volumes. Square booked a profit per share of 13 cents versus the 11 cents expected by the market on adjusted revenue of $385 million versus the expected $367.6 million.

Adjusted revenue grew 60 percent from a year ago, with transaction-based revenue surging 30 percent, to $625.2 million. Gross payment volume, the payments processed by sellers that use Square, topped $21.4 billion, up 30 percent from a year ago.

The market didn’t like the third-quarter forecast, however, with Square predicting only an 8- to 10-cent-a-share profit. The company said it planned to “put dollars back into the business” to improve its product lineup.

Photo: jdlasica/Flickr