Google Partners With Coinbase to Bring Crypto Payments to Cloud Services

Tech giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) has partnered with Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) to allow users to pay for cloud services using crypto. A select group of customers will now be able to make payments with Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin. In response to the news, Coinbase’s stock rose over 7%.

Coinbase to Move from AWS to Google Cloud

According to Google Cloud Vice President and General Manager Amit Zavery, the strategic partnership with Coinbase will be through Coinbase commerce—a crypto payment platform for merchants—and only selected customers will access this feature once it launches in 2023. Currently, the platform only accepts ten cryptocurrency payments, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.

This partnership will cause Coinbase to switch from Amazon Web service to Google’s cloud infrastructure for hosting its data-related application. Google will also use Coinbase’s custody service, Coinbase Prime.

The terms of the deal are not public yet; the CEO of Google Cloud, Thomas Kurian, said, “We want to make building in Web3 faster and easier, and this partnership with Coinbase helps developers get one step closer to that goal.” 

Google’s Interest In Crypto

It is no secret that Google is interested in crypto and Web3. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has invested $1.5 billion in different blockchain companies, including Dapper Labs and Alchemy.

In January 2022, Google hired former PayPal executive Arnold Goldberg to lead its payment division to explore crypto as a payment method.

SkyMavis, the creator of the popular play-to-earn NFT game Axie Infinity, partnered with Google Cloud in September 2022 to help improve the security of its Ronin network and act as an independent validator. This partnership came after Skymavis lost about $600 Million to a breach on its network.

The Bottom Line 

There is no question that tech giants are becoming increasingly interested in blockchain and Web3.0. With a view to exploring the benefits of the metaverse, last year Facebook rebranded itself as Meta. Recently, it launched the NFT feature for Facebook users. Microsoft funded $20 million in a decentralized data warehouse to develop Web3.0. As novel technology becomes more prevalent, the movement to join it will continue.