Some Google Cloud customers will soon be able to pay for services using cryptocurrency, courtesy of a new partnership between Coinbase Commerce and the cloud hosting giant.
The feature is only set to be available for select blockchain-focused companies initially, but will be rolled out to more firms at a later date.
The tie-up will offer support for payments in a wide variety of cryptocurrencies, including popular staples such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.
The service is expected to become available in early 2023.
Coinbase partnership
Coinbase will facilitate the payments in exchange for a small cut of the transaction, similar to how a company like PayPal would.
The partnership will also see Coinbase select Google Cloud as a strategic cloud provider to build its exchange and data services.
Coinbase said it will use Google Cloud's compute platform to process blockchain data at scale, and enhance the global reach of its crypto services using Google's premium fiber-optic network.
Big Tech firms accepting payments via cryptocurrency is nothing particularly new in and of itself, Microsoft launched a scheme that allowed users to top up their Microsoft Store account with Bitcoin as far back as 2014, via a partnership with BitPay.
It's not Google's first partnership in the world of blockchain either; the company recently partnered with SkyMavis, the creator of the popular NFT game Axie Infinity, to improve the security of its Ronin network following a high-profile attack.
The news seems to be considered a big win for Coinbase, as the crypto exchange's stock jumped 8.4% in trading immediately following the news.
It's also possible we'll be seeing more crypto integrations from Google in future. In January 2022, Google Cloud picked up PayPal executive Arnold Goldberg to lead its payments division, who then told Bloomberg "crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to".
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