Google plans to launch custody service for cryptocurrencies
2 min readGoogle plans to enter the cryptocurrency custody market, as revealed by Bloomberg on Wednesday (18). The company’s payments division plans to add features that allow users to store cryptocurrencies on their digital cards.
Apparently, Google will allow its customers to keep BTC on their digital cards while they spend fiat currency. In this way, BTC is not directly used as a medium of exchange, but rather converted into fiat currency and spent.
Partnerships indicates change
According to the report, Google announced two novelties in this regard. The first of these was the formation of a partnership with exchange Coinbase and cryptocurrency payment processor BitPay. Both will help search giants implement the new functionality.
The executive told Bloomberg that his team is looking for additional partnership opportunities. The company also announced the hiring of Arnold Goldberg, a former PayPal executive. Goldberg will be the new head of the payments division.
As PayPal recently released cryptocurrency transactions on its platform, the changes could indicate that Google does not want to be left behind. However, the company will not yet accept cryptocurrencies as payment for its services.
Seeing value in BTC
According to Bill Ready, president of commerce at Google, the company seeks to evolve and provide more service options to its users. Therefore, cryptocurrencies are on the radar of innovations closely watched by the company.
“Cryptocurrencies are something we pay a lot of attention to. As user demand and merchant demand evolve, we will evolve with it,” said Ready.
Given the astronomical increase in BTC purchasing power over the last decade, it is difficult to conceive of a scenario where users would want to spend their satoshis as the opportunity cost of holding it and spending fiat currency directly increases.
But eventually, this expense may happen, and Google wants to have mechanisms to make this operation easier for customers. However, the search giant has made it clear that it does not want to enter the banking market.
“We are not a bank and we have no intention of being a bank. Some past efforts sometimes unwittingly invaded these spaces,” said Ready.
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