Google Cards To Store Cryptocurrency.
Users might soon be able to hold bitcoin and use fiat with Google's digital cards. To make the functionality possible, the company has partnered with Coinbase and BitPay. When Google will begin to accept bitcoin for payments is still unknown.
According to a Bloomberg report, Google is cautiously entering the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency space as the company's payments division battles for significant market share in the payments sector and promotes adding custody capabilities of such assets to its digital cards.
According to the report, Bill Ready, Google's president of commerce, said, "Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to." "We'll change with user demand and merchant demand as they do."
In order to make the new functionality possible, Google has reportedly partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Inc. and payment processor BitPay. Despite the fact that the business is still not accepting bitcoin for payments, the executive told Bloomberg that his team is looking for more joint venture opportunities.
While not exactly using the peer-to-peer asset as a medium of exchange, Google's cryptocurrency integrations enable users to spend their bitcoin holdings while still allowing them to hold BTC in their digital cards.
Given Bitcoin's exponential increase in value over the past ten years, it is difficult to imagine a situation in which Bitcoiners would want to sell some of their BTC holdings because doing so would result in a higher opportunity cost than just spending fiat money directly.
The news comes after the company hired Arnold Goldberg, a former PayPal executive, to lead its payments division in October, abandoning a previous push into banking. Google wants to act as a "connective tissue" for the entire consumer finance sector, claims Ready.
“We’re not a bank — we have no intention of being a bank,” Ready told Bloomberg. “Some past efforts, at times, would unwittingly wade into those spaces.”