Google To Allow Customers Pay For Cloud Services With Cryptocurrencies In 2023, Announces Coinbase As Partner

On Tuesday, big tech company Google announced that it will be allowing some customers to make payments for cloud services using cryptocurrencies early next year. Google will be doing this via a partnership with Coinbase, and the crypto exchange will be leveraging Google’s cloud infrastructure.

This announcement came at Google’s Cloud Next conference. The latest development may help Google lure in top companies in a tough, fast-growing market where cloud services providers do not allow clients to make payments with digital currencies currently.

For Google, its cloud business is an alternative way of generating revenue and diversifying from its advertising business. The company’s cloud business accounts for about 9 percent of revenue, up from around 6 percent in 2019. This shows that Google’s cloud business is expanding very quickly, and quicker than the whole company.

As part of the deal, crypto exchange Coinbase which generates a majority of its revenue from retail transactions will move data-related applications to Google from the market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, Coinbase Vice President of business development Jim Migdal said.

Thanks to an integration with the Coinbase Commerce service, the Google Cloud Platform infrastructure service will initially accept cryptocurrency payments from a handful of customers in the Web3 world who want to pay with cryptocurrency, Amit Zavery, Vice President, General Manager, and Head of Platform at Google Cloud.

As time goes on, Google will expand the payment option to more customers, allowing them to make payments for cloud services using cryptocurrency, Amit Zavery added. Coinbase Commerce supports 10 currencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. 

Google had, in May, intimated the possibility of adding support for cryptocurrency payments. Jim Migdal acknowledged that Coinbase and Google has been in talks for months before the deal was finally decided upon.

The terms of the deal are yet to be disclosed but Coinbase will earn a percentage of transactions that go through it, like other Coinbase Commerce deals, Coinbase Vice President of business development Jim Migdal said.