Google Admits Crypto Winter Hurts Ad Business – Bitcoin News

The downturn in the digital asset market that kicked off the current crypto winter is negatively impacting search spend, Google has acknowledged. Third-quarter ad growth fell to a low just once in nearly a decade, the tech company revealed this week.

With fewer crypto ads, Google records 6% growth in ad revenue last quarter

Online advertising giant Google has partly blamed a slowdown in revenue growth on reduced ad spending by financial firms, including those working in crypto-assets. During parent company Alphabet’s earnings call on Tuesday, Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler admitted to witnessing reduced search spending during the third quarter and elaborated:

For example, in financial services, we saw a decline in the insurance, loan, mortgage and crypto subcategories.

In a report citing the executive, CNBC noted that with overall ad growth of 6%, the three-month period was Google’s weakest of any quarter since 2013, with just one exception, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

YouTube’s ad revenue also shrank year-on-year, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai citing the challenging macro climate’s impact on its ad business.

Major cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BCH) and ethereum (ETH) lost nearly 60% of their value in 2022, compared to their all-time highs. The crypto industry has since seen a number of hedge fund and lender bankruptcies, including Celsius Network, Voyager Digital and Three Arrows Capital, as well as layoffs at companies such as Blockchain.com and Crypto.com.

Leading US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase cut its workforce by 18% and its stock is down 70% this year, after the company went public in 2021. Google announced a partnership with the crypto trading platform in the third quarter of this year.

Earlier in October, Google revealed that it will rely on Coinbase to allow customers to pay for its cloud services with cryptocurrencies in 2023, an indication of the tech giant’s hope that the crypto winter will be short. Coinbase is also expected to move data-related applications to Google’s cloud infrastructure.

Do you think Google’s ad revenue will become even more dependent on the state of the crypto industry in the future? Share your expectations in the comments section below.

Lubomir Tassev

Lubomir Tassev is a journalist from tech-savvy Eastern Europe who likes Hitchens’ quote: “To be a writer is what I am, rather than what I do.” Besides crypto, blockchain and fintech, international politics and economics are two other sources of inspiration.