Google Cloud's Web3 portal launch sparks debate in crypto industry
Google Cloud has introduced a new Web3 portal with resources for blockchain developers, including datasets and tutorials on creating non-fungible tokens (NFT). However, the reception within the cryptocurrency industry has been mixed.
“No native Bitcoin and lightning support? Seems like an oversight to ignore the most important cryptocurrency,” vice president of product marketing at Unchained Phil Geiger stated in an X post on April 25.
“Not impressed Google is way behind,” pseudonymous crypto trader MartyParty told his 80,700 X followers on April 26.
Meanwhile, others were more receptive to the launch. Mitroplus labs founder Ivaibi Festo described the Web3 portal as a „comprehensive resource“ in an April 25 post on X.
According to its website, developers can access a range of products and receive testnet tokens to deploy and test their decentralized applications (DApps) on Ethereum testnets Sepolia and Holesky.
It also has a learn program with tutorials on developing an NFT, implementing Web3 loyalty programs, and how to secure digital assets with multi party computation (MPC).
This comes after several recent developments by Google in the Web3 industry.
Most recently, it has expanded its features to allow users to search wallet balances across multiple blockchains, such as Bitcoin, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, Polygon and Fantom.
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At the beginning of 2024, Google updated its policies to allow certain crypto products to be advertised on major search engines, including Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF).
Last year, Google appeared to be focusing on establishing partnerships in preparation for the portal launch this year.
In October 2023, Google Cloud’s BigQuery data warehouse was integrated with MultiversX, which will help Web3 projects and users derive valuable insights from powerful data analytics and artificial intelligence tools within the Google Cloud ecosystem.
Just a month before this, in September 2023, Google’s BigQuery added 11 blockchain networks to its data warehouse.
The new networks included Avalanche, Arbitrum, Cronos, Ethereum’s Görli testnet, Fantom, Near, Optimism, Polkadot, Polygon’s mainnet, Polygon’s Mumbai testnet and Tron.
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