Google Pay Partners With Cryptocurrency Exchanges To Accept Their Digital Cards

Another day, another massive company entering the cryptocurrency space. Google is making moves to boost up the profile of their Google Pay service, and, of course, crypto is in the mix. The company hired Arnold Goldberg, ex-Senior Vice President at PayPal, “to run its payments division.” That’s according to Bloomberg, who broke the story. 

“The move is part of a broader strategy to team up with a wider range of financial services, including cryptocurrencies, said Bill Ready, Google’s president of commerce. The business, known for the Google Pay system and mobile wallet, has largely avoided the crypto industry.”

Related Reading | Bitcoin Still Overtook Trump, VISA, PayPal, and Libra on Google Search in 2019

Until now, that is. The company is cautiously entering the cryptocurrency space and NewsBTC is here to tell you what you should know about it.

The company’s financial division hasn’t been the most successful. Their Google Pay service is far behind its competitors, and facing a crowded space with many players trying to get ahead. Recently, Alphabet Inc. partnered with 11 banks for an initiative called Plex, and canceled everything at the last second. “We’re not a bank — we have no intention of being a bank,” said the company’s president of commerce Bill Ready in a recent interview.

On the other hand, the company has a lot going for it: 

“Google does have enormous consumer reach and a huge balance sheet. The technology giant takes no fees on transactions with its mobile wallet, and Ready said there are no plans to change that.”

Let’s be clear about this, the technology giant is only testing the waters. They haven’t announced anything crazy, nor are they developing technology themselves. Still, it’s a great improvement from their “largely avoided the crypto industry” policy. What are they doing, exactly?

“Google has partnered with companies, including Coinbase Global Inc. and BitPay Inc., to store crypto assets in digital cards, while still having users pay in traditional currencies. Ready said Google is looking to do more of these partnership, though the company still isn’t accepting crypto for transactions.”

Since that’s a little vague, Yahoo! Finance elaborates on the matter:

“Late last year crypto platform Bakkt said its virtual Visa debit card would be available for use on Google Pay online and in stores. Bakkt’s Google Pay support follows in the footsteps of Coinbase, which rolled out support for Apple Pay and Google Pay for its Coinbase Cards earlier this year. Google is also working with Bitpay and Gemini to support their crypto cards, meaning that people who use these cards can add them to Google Pay.”

To further emphasize the lightness of the company’s crypto play, Bill Ready told Bloomberg:

“Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to. As user demand and merchant demand evolves, we’ll evolve with it.”

As soon as the article went live and the news started spreading through the Internet, both Bitcoin and Ethereum’s prices spiked for a little while. Then, as people read exactly what Google announced, the excitement wore off. The two leading cryptocurrencies have been trading horizontally, lightly trending downwards for a while. And this announcement wasn’t strong enough to change that.

Related Reading | Coinbase Adds Option To Buy Crypto With Apple Pay, Google Pay To Follow

Maybe it should’ve been, though.