Google Cloud Hiring Blockchain Specialists in Bid to ‘Drive Decentralization’ Efforts

Google Cloud’s Digital Assets Team will provide dedicated node hosting for developers and take part in validation, among other services

article-image

Google Cloud sign. Silicon Valley, USA. Credit: Shutterstock

share

key takeaways

  • Google’s cloud division has formed a new business unit that will seek to support its new and existing customers developing on the blockchain
  • The Digital Asset Team will provide dedicated node hosting for developers through to on-chain governance

Google’s cloud computing division is hunting down blockchain experts as part of a new business unit aimed at supporting the tech giant’s existing customers.

The unit, known as the Digital Assets Team, will focus on the retail and healthcare sectors as Google attempts to expand its offerings beyond advertising.

“We’re seeing [interest in the blockchain space] across every industry vertical we interact with — from financial services and capital markets to retail, sports and gaming,” Richard Widmann, Google Cloud’s head of strategy for digital assets, told Blockworks.

”Digital asset and blockchains technology is already having a profound impact on our customers and their users across nearly every major vertical, and perhaps most prominently in the financial services space,” he said. 

Decentralization is a major component of the crypto-industry. Decentralized finance, or DeFi, has sprung up in recent years based on the philosophy of cutting out the middleman, including banks and lenders, to transact peer-to-peer via the use of smart contracts. Google is hoping to capitalize on the movement as finance continues to evolve.

”We see the evolution of blockchain technology and decentralized networks today as analogous to the rise of open source and the internet 10-15 years ago,” Widmann said.

The new unit will support customers seeking to build, transact, store value and deploy new products via blockchain-based platforms, said Yolande Piazza, vice president of financial services at Google Cloud in a blog post on Thursday.

“This new team will enable our customers to accelerate their efforts in this emerging space and help underpin the blockchain ecosystems of tomorrow,” said Piazza.

Specifically, Google Cloud’s Digital Assets Team will provide dedicated node hosting for developers, take part in node validation and on-chain governance and support on-chain governance via participation from Google Cloud executives and senior engineers, per the post.

The team will also help drive co-development and integrations into Google’s partner ecosystem as well as advancing go-to-market initiatives with its ecosystem partners in the hope that Google Cloud becomes “the connective tissue between traditional enterprise and blockchain technologies.”

Several large blockchain and crypto companies utilize Google’s Cloud Platform including HederaTheta Labs, and Dapper Labs which recently signed on in a bid to leverage the tech giant’s “performance, reliability and security.”

This story was updated on Jan. 28, 2022, at 2:25 pm ET to include commentary from Google.

Additional reporting by Casey Wagner


Don’t miss the next big story – join our free daily newsletter.

Tags

Upcoming Events

HYATT REGENCY SALT LAKE CITY

TUES, OCT. 8, 2024

Guided by the expertise of Blockworks Research Analysts team, this one day event will feature senior leaders, entrepreneurs, and developers from across the crypto industry. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in an immersive experience to explore the latest trends, […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Pack your bags, anon — we’re heading west! Join us in the beautiful Salt Lake City for the third installment of Permissionless. Come for the alpha, stay for the fresh air. Permissionless III promises unforgettable panels, killer networking opportunities, and mountains […]

recent research

hivemapper.jpeg

Research

We believe crypto market participants overlook Hivemapper’s fundamental potential due to a poor understanding of both the niche map data market and Hivemapper’s positioning relative to incumbents. Hivemapper’s token model catalyzes both a cost and product advantage via unmatched map freshness and near real-time accuracy, which is its wedge into a market characterized by stale data and high data collection costs. Its current and potential future product suite may represent one of the strongest possibilities for PMF in crypto today.

article-image

The Department of Justice and Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced back-to-back lawsuits against KuCoin Tuesday

article-image

Judge Failla found that Coinbase didn’t operate as an unregistered broker in offering its wallet service

article-image

A fund by Laser Digital offers investors exposure to the Polygon network, while a new 21Shares ETP focuses on staking rewards from Toncoin

article-image

Sponsored

The TRON network’s integration into Dune brings a wealth of data and insights to the fingertips of users

article-image

A BTC futures fund offered by Hashdex and Tidal Investments has gotten regulatory clearance to hold bitcoin directly

article-image

At launch, Chain Signatures will be compatible with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Cosmos network chains, as well as DogeCoin and XRP Ledger