Google Pay Cryptocurrency Move: Platform may enter Bitcoin, Ethereum space

A series of events has finally led Alphabet Inc.’s Google to hire Arnold Goldberg, former PayPal executive, to run its payment operations and form a blockchain technologies group and to strategise and implement Google Pay cryptocurrency move. The company may be setting its eye on bringing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum to its Google Pay platform. The rumors have strengthened after Bill Ready, Google’s president of commerce said, “The move is part of a broader strategy to team up with a wider range of financial services, including cryptocurrencies.”

Reported by Bloomberg, this move might be the new direction Google wants to venture towards after it binned the Google Plex project earlier in October 2021. Through Google Plex, the company was planning to build a digital checking and savings service. After spending more than a year on the project and even bringing onboard 11 banking partners, Google eventually decided to let go of the project. Now, with new developments, it appears the company is choosing to go towards the direction of cryptocurrency instead.

Possible Cryptocurrency Move for Google Pay

It all began after Google hired Goldberg to handle Google pay system, the announcement for the same was made on January 19. The next day, Google announced forming a dedicated group for blockchain technologies under Shivakumar Venkataraman, Google’s engineering vice president. Bloomberg reported on the basis of an internal email that Venkataraman will become a “founding leader” of Labs. Labs is a division for Google that handles virtual and augmented reality projects. The collective result of all these developments is assumed to open the path for cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum for Google Pay.

Google Pay’s crypto move may play a critical role. So far, users outside India could trade and buy cryptocurrencies using apps such as PayPal and Coinbase. But this move will add a native support in Android devices for cryptocurrency which will not only add to ease of managing crypto finances but also give users the much needed infrastructure stability. This move can possibly put a stop to various crypto scams that have emerged in recent years.

While it is not clear whether Google Pay will allow support for cryptocurrency on its platform or will develop a sister app to enable it, its interest towards crypto and blockchain cannot be denied. Things are building towards an exciting future with the speculated entry of the tech giant in the Bitcoin and Ethereum market.

Notably, this applies only to the US market and not in India.

NOTE: Google has responded to the report and this is what it said, “All payments made through Google Pay, online or offline, are in fiat currencies. In the US, we have worked with Coinbase, Bitpay, Gemini to support their crypto cards, which means that people who use these cards can add these cards to Google Pay but the transaction is always in fiat currencies. There is no new effort on crypto.”