At the end of last year, Bakkt announced that it was working with Google Cloud. Customers with a Bakkt Visa Debit Card, or Bakkt Card, can pay with bitcoin (BTC), among other things, where Google Pay is supported. However, this does not concern direct crypto payments. The BTC is first converted into fiat.
In an effort to further push their adaptation of crypto
payments, Google announced it has hired a former board member of the payments
department at PayPal, Arnold Goldberg. The acquisition has a crypto tinge,
according to reports from Bloomberg.
Google sets out has broader crypto strategy
Bitcoin and the rest of the industry are slowly but surely
moving into the mainstream sphere, and it is almost impossible to imagine the
world financial stage without it. Implausible events would have to take place
in order for bitcoin to cease to exist
in ten years, and most people seem to realize that by now. The mass adoption is
continuing steadily, and more and more people are choosing to park a small part
of their savings in bitcoin. This has also been noticed by Google.
In an effort to further fuel the expansion into the bitcoin space, Google hired a former star player of PayPal with Arnold Goldberg. Goldberg has been tasked with taking on the board of the payments branch within Google to take Google Pay to the next level. Google’s president of commerce, Bill Ready, told Bloomberg that hiring Goldberg is part of a broader financial strategy. It is striking that Ready also mentions cryptocurrencies as part of this strategy.
According to Bloomberg’s report, Google partnered with major US trading platform
Coinbase and bitcoin payment processor BitPay to add the new functionality to the
cards. Bill Ready also told Bloomberg that his team is still looking for new
partners to strengthen the ecosystem, making it very likely that we may soon
welcome Google into the bitcoin arena.
The company had been developing a new financial service for
some time, but pulled the plug last month. Google wants to have a broader focus
on the financial world and be a “connective tissue” for everyone in the
consumer finance industry.
In addition, Google has already entered into several
partnerships with crypto companies. For example, it is now working with BitPay
and Coinbase with the aim of letting users store crypto in digital payment
cards in Google Pay. Ready says Google will continue to meet consumer demand:
“Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to, […] As user and seller demand evolves, we evolve with it.”
What Google plans to do with crypto is still unclear. It is
striking however, that Google is actively getting involved with crypto and has
started working on various crypto projects.
Struggling to break through
The tech giant is struggling to gain a foothold in the
payments industry and now has the plan to change that with bitcoin. In the
short term, collaborations with Coinbase and BitPay should make it possible,
among other things, to hold bitcoin on digital cards – and then issue those
funds as fiat to retailers. Paying indirectly with bitcoin with payment cards
from Google; that sounds like an interesting way for bitcoin to scale.
This would allow consumers to make transactions with their
bitcoin without the direct use of the blockchain; everything will go through
Google’s own systems. Whilst this isn’t the way bitcoin was ever intended to be
used, however, once can still store the majority of their bitcoin in their own
wallet and transfer part of their assets to use with Google. For the most part,
full control of your own assets remains, and you are dependent to a small
extent on the services of Google. It is not yet clear when Google will release
the digital payment cards.
Google Pay and Bitcoin integration
The digital currency is increasingly coming to the attention
of companies and financial institutions. Last year, it was announced that Apple
Pay wants to make payments with Bitcoin possible, and that Google Pay and
Samsung Pay will be following suit.
The information comes from BitPay, which is a service
provider that oversees Bitcoin transactions in the United States. Stephen Pair,
the company’s CEO, announced the upcoming adoption of Bitcoin for Google Pay to
Businesswire. “We have thousands of BitPay Wallet app users who use the BitPay
Card and are always looking for new places and ways to spend their
cryptocurrencies. With Apple Pay, and soon Google Pay and Samsung Pay, it will
be easier to use BitPay Card in more places.”
Abandonment of plans to become a bank
In October of last year, it was announced that Google had
cancelled collaboration plans with “Plex” to allow users to hold bank accounts
with the company. “We aren’t a bank, and we have no intention of becoming a
one. Some past projects have sometimes subconsciously pushed us a bit in that
direction;” said Bill Ready. Rather, Google Pay should become a connecting
platform for consumers in terms of their finances.
As a user, you can easily pay contactless on mobile devices
with Google Pay. As part of the new plans, Google Pay will turn into a digital
wallet that will allow you to store event tickets, airline tickets, vaccination
passports and the like in addition to bitcoin and other digital assets. With
several ongoing major partnerships in the bitcoin space, it doesn’t seem long
before we can hold bitcoin with Google.Bakkt announced.
