Most companies know now that entering the cryptocurrency market is beneficial in many ways. Blockchain technology offers the opportunity to create and manage digital coin safely and without depending on Central Banks and other bank entities. Though some companies are still evaluating the possibility to join this world, some others own their cryptocurrency and are trading with them.
Oddly, one of the major companies in online business, Google, hadn’t commented a lot about its view of these advances. Although it seemed resilient at first, it has tiptoed through the crypto world, making contacts and research, until finally showing its intentions.
When Bitcoin and other digital currencies started to get noticed, most of the big online companies like Google looked at them hastily. Crypto looked as dodging currencies that weren’t supported by any known bank entity. Additionally, crypto had unstable prices, unreliable backers, and untrusty reputation. This made the tech giant remain silent in the whole affair. Its primary focus became achieving quantum supremacy. That was a goal they finally reached in 2019, by announcing the first quantum computer.
But, within the bowels of the tech giant, forces were at play that would change that. As the years passed, cryptocurrency proved to be a powerful ally. So much so that Google’s top brass decided to turn a foe into a friend.
Google holds 91% of the search engine market share in the world, which effectively makes Google a monopoly when it comes to search engines. And it is that market power that has helped cryptocurrencies reach new heights. It all started with its app store, Google Play.
Google Play’s easy access to developers, combined with their relax policies, allowed crypto traders to create apps that took advantage of the power behind Google’s platform. Crypto sites like CoinDesk released Android apps as far as 2014. Then, when Android and Chrome started to integrate, Google increased its crypto support by having extensions dedicated exclusively to cryptocurrency.
All this was happening while Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon remained stoic regarding the usage of cryptocurrency. And as of this writing, only Facebook has changed its stance, by creating Libra. As for the other tech giants, they remained as uninterested in crypto as they were almost a decade ago.
Google’s influence though, remains bigger now than ever before. Google has been working trough the later years to become the leading provider for all those companies that saw the opportunities that the crypto world was offering them. It has advanced quietly and without making big announcements related to the subject.
As of this writing, Google has done more than be a platform for cryptocurrency brokers and news sites. Through its parent company, Alphabet, Google has invested in several blockchain startups. Moreover, in 2019, Google surprised everyone revealing a new platform that would be displaying
digital currencies in a more user-friendly manner by showing relevant information such as top stories and other similar suggested digital currencies when a user makes a search.
The platform started with the most valuable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Etherum, and Ripley. It will extend to other cryptocurrencies in the future.
For a company that is close to making computing encryption obsolete, Google is also eager to be the centre point of all things crypto-related.
On July 2018, Google announced through its blog about the upcoming project it has been working. It informed that it had partnered with two blockchain startups and was going to associate them with its storage platform, Google Cloud. And, it delivered in February 2019 with the launch of Big Query. BigQuery is a storage and data analytics platform that support Bitcoin, Etherum, and other cryptocurrencies.
In June that same year, Google partnered with Chainlink, a blockchain platform that works with on-ramps and off-ramps called small contracts.
Other great tools developed by Google are Private Join and Compute, a secure multi-parting computation, and Cryptography, which is a tool for Android Developers. Both tools allow and explain to the users how to cypher their information during crypto data transfer. These tools are essential on cryptocurrency transactions, where the peer-to-peer feature gives more security during trades, protecting it from hackers and online thieves.
Today, Google is taking the lead on secure platforms that support cryptocurrencies and allow users to make safer transactions through it. One example is the Coinbase Card, which now can be used through Google Play. That way, Android users can make transactions through the platform in their mobile phones without having the physical card at hand.
With Google Play, you can emulate the card through the NFC chip, allowing offline purchases. Sadly, this feature is still on development, only available for some of the countries that support the Coinbase Card because of restriction rules.
Google keep proposing new and exciting features that will give more security to crypto traders. Currently, the opinion of some of those who work directly with cryptocurrency is not all positive for the fact that companies like Google and Apple are storing their public information, fearing it could be easily hacked. However, the tools and features that Google have been providing, especially last year, gives more confidence to these traders and investors that want to keep their data safe.
The way that Google has come from not being part of the first wave of popularity of cryptocurrency, to become one of the leading companies in the crypto world is mesmerizing. Google took a while to realise that it made a mistake by not entering this world sooner, and it is quickly making up for it, involving and investing in the crypto projects at significant steps. Its plans offer a high level of security for the traders and investors that work with digital coin and give them access to a varied list of cryptocurrencies, not only Bitcoin and Etherum.
Google has made smart purchases between the blockchain startups and worked hard to develop useful platforms for crypto traders, all these actions in the most secretive way, generations rumours and assumptions from those following the advances of blockchain through the network. Now that it has shown its play, it is clear to see that its involvement on future crypto projects is a fact, proving that perseverance is one of the features of the Google company.
Featured image source: pixabay.com
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