Google \u2013 the king of search engines \u2013 is partnering with Coinbase \u2013 the king of digital currency exchanges \u2013 to allow customers to pay for cloud services with crypto assets like bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum.<\/p>\n
The move is pushing the goals of\u00a0bitcoin and its digital counterparts closer to being achieved. What many people likely forget is that while bitcoin and many of its crypto cousins have taken on either speculative or even hedge-like statuses in recent years, many of them were initially designed to serve as payment tools. They were built to push checks, credit cards, and fiat currencies to the side, but this has been a relatively slow journey given the volatility that continues to drag them down.<\/p>\n
It is extremely hard to understand when bitcoin and its crypto family will go up or down when it comes to their prices. Many stores and companies have been reluctant to say \u201cyes\u201d when it comes to accepting crypto payments for this reason, and to a degree, we can\u2019t blame them.<\/p>\n
Consider the following scenario: someone walks into a store and buys $50 worth of merchandise with bitcoin. For one reason or another, the store doesn\u2019t trade the BTC into fiat right away and about 24 hours go by. From there, the price of BTC goes down and that $50 becomes $40. The customer gets to keep everything he or she bought, but the store has lost money in the end. Is this a fair situation? Not everyone thinks so.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what makes enterprises like Google so important. They understand the initial purposes of bitcoin and digital currencies and are trying to transform them into usable tools that everyday people can benefit from.<\/p>\n
The news has been very beneficial for Coinbase, which saw its stock shares rise close to nine percent following the announcement. The company has been dealing with dipping stock prices as the firm is highly attached to bitcoin, and so long as the asset continues to fall, shares in the trading platform are likely to follow suit.<\/p>\n
Amit Zavery \u2013 vice president, general manager, and head of platform at Google Cloud \u2013 explained in a recent interview:<\/p>\n
\nThe Google Cloud platform infrastructure service will initially accept cryptocurrency payments from a handful of customers in the web3 world who want to pay with cryptocurrency thanks to an integration with the Coinbase Commerce service.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
How Will Coinbase Earn Its Keep?<\/h2>\n
Coinbase is set to earn funds through fees from transactions occurring between Google and its crypto-paying customers. This is how the firm is set to make money.<\/p>\n
Google further mentioned that this step is merely an experiment to test not only how popular digital currency payments are, but how it can potentially step deeper into the world of virtual assets.<\/p>\n