It seems that Google is planning to do enter the crypto market. Google has been reported to have approached Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin. Vitalik Buterin shared a screenshot of the email by Google recruiter Elizabeth Garcia who appears to be offering him a job.
Buterin shared the email and created a poll “should I drop ethereum and work for Google?”. After which, 59{4ede17fdd9b4ce8121d01fc4b54913fe84f8215aace504cc657695cefb5329ff} of the 2,000 people who answered the poll on Twitter mentioned that Buterin shouldn’t abandon Ethereum.
Google’s Interest in Blockchain
This move isn’t quite surprising. In fact, Google already revealed in the past that they are interested in dabbling in blockchain technology. Google’s spokesperson mentioned last March that “Like many new technologies, we have individuals in various teams exploring potential use of blockchain, but it’s too early for us to speculate about any possible uses or plans”.
Why Ethereum? Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency today based on market capitalization. Ethereum is also known as a platform that makes it easier to create tokens.
How Can Google Utilize Blockchain?
There are many potential uses of blockchain for Google. For instance, it can be used for paying for advertising or for paying for YouTube Red and YouTube TV services. It is also possible that a Google cryptocurrency can be used for Google shopping stores. But of course, these are just speculations at this point whether Google is really interested in making their own cryptocurrency or not.
Google isn’t the only one that is planning to take advantage of blockchain technology. Facebook has also been reported to have their own cryptocurrency in the future. David Marcus who worked on the Facebook Messenger team mentioned in a post that “I’m setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch”. This can be a big news especially now that Facebook has 2 billion users worldwide.
Google Banned Crypto Advertisements
Google announced that it is already banning ads for cryptocurrencies and binary options starting in June. It includes all speculative financial instruments. Scott Spenser, who works as Google’s Director of Sustainable Ads, mentioned that Google “updated several policies to address ads in unregulated or speculative financial products like binary options, cryptocurrency, foreign exchange markets and contracts for difference (or CFDs)”.
The same move has been made by Facebook. And also, after the ban of crypto and ICO-related advertisements, Facebook has been reported of becoming interested in having their own cryptocurrency.
However, this move makes a lot of sense considering that these high-risk products and even the entire crypto industry are under scrutiny in different parts of the world. In fact, 1 out of 5 ICOs is considered a scam according to one report.
Are we going to see internet giants make use of blockchain technology in the near future? There is also a possibility that even institutional investors are going to enter the crypto market soon. Goldman Sachs and NYSE are among those that are interested in becoming part of the crypto market. However, experts believe that for institutional investors to enter the picture, there has to be regulatory clarity first. And for this reason, stricter regulations and clampdown on crypto-related scams could actually be a good thing.
