Alphabet Gives Big Gift to Coinbase and Crypto
It looks like the Thanksgiving present before Thanksgiving.
Alphabet (GOOGLE) through its subsidiary Google, has just offered the crypto industry a dream support for the young industry that has redoubled its efforts in recent months to push for its adoption by the masses.
Google now accepts cryptocurrency payments for its cloud computing services.
Google Cloud will allow companies, developers of web3 projects to pay with a basket of digital currencies offered by Coinbase (COIN) via its Coinbase Commerce service. In fact, this decision is part of a partnership with the crypto platform which is the only public platform that offers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
Coinbase Commerce is part of the diversification of the firm. It allows businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments and bill their customers in ten of the most popular cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin, Ether, Tether USD, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, USD coin, Litecoin, DAI and Apecoin.
Google Cloud will initially allow a small core of companies in the cryptosphere to pay in cryptocurrencies via Coinbase Commerce. In a second step, the internet giant will offer this option to a larger number of companies.
The service comes into force from 2023.
Great deals for Coinbase
“As part of the partnership, Google Cloud is positioned to enable select customers, starting with those in the Web3 ecosystem, to pay for their cloud services via select cryptocurrencies,” the companies said in a joint press release. Powered by Coinbase Commerce – which enables merchants globally to accept cryptocurrency payments in a decentralized manner – the new payment experience will benefit Google Cloud customers and partners by increasing the choice of payments for Google Cloud services.”
Web3 is the somewhat vague term for the latest iteration of the internet that will replace today’s internet or web2. It is seen as a decentralized internet, where consumers and users will regain control over their data. The big tech that consists of Google and Meta will no longer be the central authorities on the internet.
The partnership with Google is good news for Coinbase, because it can attract a large number of firms to the platform that want to take advantage of Google’s ecosystem.
Coinbase should also collect commission on transactions.
Google and Coinbase did not disclose the financial terms of the partnership.
“We are excited that Google Cloud has chosen Coinbase to help bring Web3 to a new set of users and provide powerful solutions for developers,” said Brian Armstrong, Co-Founder and CEO of Coinbase. “With more than 100 million verified users and 14,500 institutional customers, Coinbase has spent more than a decade building industry-leading products on top of blockchain technology.”
In addition, the new partners have indicated that they will be able to extend the collaboration. Google plans to use the Coinbase Prime service, which securely stores organizations’ cryptocurrencies and allows them to trade.
“Google will use Coinbase Prime, for institutional crypto services, such as safe custody and reporting, the companies said.
For Google, this partnership is an opportunity to catch up with the two main competitors in the cloud – Amazon via Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft with Azure – which dominate the cloud industry.
Risky effort
Coinbase will transfer its data-related applications from AWS to Google. Neither AWS nor Azure currently offer the ability to pay in cryptocurrency. Google Services, which is Alphabet’s play to reduce its reliance on ad revenue, is growing. While the market share is only 9%, it is increasing.
By embracing the crypto industry, the Mountain View giant is betting that the sector looking to replace traditional financial services and reinvent the codes of the internet will allow it to catch on. And above all, Google will appear to be the place to go for developers of apps and projects in the crypto galaxy, which includes cryptocurrencies, web3 and the metaverse.
“We are proud that Coinbase has chosen Google Cloud as its strategic cloud partner, and we are ready to serve the thriving global Web3 customer and partner ecosystem,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Our focus is to make it frictionless for all customers to benefit from our scalability, reliability, security and data services, so they can focus on innovation in the Web3 space.”
However, adventuring in the cryptosphere comes with risks. Prices are very volatile. The cryptocurrency market has lost more than $2 trillion since peaking at $3 trillion last November, according to CoinGecko.
