Google has entered into an agreement with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to allow some customers to pay for cloud services with these digital currencies starting in early 2023.
This was announced during Google’s Cloud Next conference, where it was also detailed that Coinbase’s operations will be based on the company’s cloud infrastructure. This is a blow to Amazon, since the platform has its applications on AWS and will now move them to the Google service.
As told by Amit Zavery, vice president and general manager of Google Cloud, in an interview with CNBC, his service will initially accept cryptocurrency payments to a limited number of customers in the Web3 world, through an integration with the Coinbase service.
He also noted that over time more customers will be allowed to make payments with cryptocurrencies. The Coinbase platform accepts about 10 digital currencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum (whose value has decreased more than 60% in the last year), Dogecoin and Litecoin.
“We look at other companies on the crypto side. Ultimately, Coinbase had the greatest capacity,” Zavery said of the decision to opt for this organization as the platform to make payments, since before the announcement it was not a given that the Mountain View company would opt for it.
Although the terms of the agreement were not disclosed, when using Coinbase for its transactions, the technology company must pay a percentage of the transactions carried out on the platform, according to Jim Migdal, vice president of business development at Coinbase.
The same executive highlighted that both companies had been in talks for months to reach an agreement that involves the transaction platform, the use of the cloud and the Coinbase Prime service.
This service allows access to a secure way to store the cryptocurrencies of the organizations and carry out exchanges between them. Therefore, Google is also exploring ways to implement it in its system from now on.
Currently, the main competitors in the cloud market, including market leader AWS and Microsoft’s Azure, do not allow payments with cryptocurrencies, so this decision could mean a big change in the business.
It also represents a relevant decision for Google, as it could represent a way for the company to increasingly expand the scope of its business in the cloud, which represents 9% of its revenue, compared to less than 6% three years ago. years.
In fact, one of the signs of this commitment to technologies related to the block chain is that non-fungible tokens (NFT) are also playing a relevant role for the Alphabet company and this year they announced the formation of teams to promote blockchain and create tools for external developers to run more applications related to it.
