Google Is Looking to Help Build Web3, Blockchain Products: Alphabet CEO

By Mat Di Salvo

Alphabet Inc., the tech conglomerate that owns Google, today said it was actively looking at how it can apply Web3 and blockchain networks to its business. 

In its Q4 earnings call yesterday, CEO Sundar Pichai said that the company was "definitely looking at blockchain and such an interesting and powerful technology with broad applications."

Google earlier this month hired former PayPal senior vice president and chief product architect, Arnold Goldberg, to lead its payments division. The company said it was looking into financial services such as Bitcoin credit and debit cards.

"So as a company, we are looking at how we might contribute to the [Web3] ecosystem and add value," Pichai said in the call. "Just one example, our Cloud team is looking at how they can support our customers' needs in building, transacting, storing value, and deploying new products on blockchain-based platform," he said. "So we'll definitely be watching the space closely and supporting it where we can."

Web3 refers to the next step of the internet, currently in development, that aims to be more decentralized. The idea is that people will be able to use the internet without giving up their data.

Web3 apps already exist and tend to use blockchain networks. The communities behind Bitcoin and Ethereum, the networks that power the two biggest cryptocurrencies by market cap, claim their technologies will lead the next evolution of the web.

Pichai also said that Google had "benefited tremendously" from open-source technologies. Web3 uses decentralized, open-source products: ones that any developer can contribute to, and Google plans to pitch in, said the CEO. 

Google has already opened its arms to crypto: Google Pay, an app on Android phones that lets users make contactless payments accepted by millions of merchants around the world, last year added integration for the Coinbase Card, a Visa debit card that enables Bitcoin payments.

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