cryptocurrency
Bulletins

Google Pay cards will soon store bitcoin

The tech giant is letting users keep crypto in its digital cards through a partnership with Coinbase and Bitpay.

three gold-colored bitcoins on black surface

Coming soon to a Google card near you

Photo: Dmitry Demidko /Unsplash

Google is testing the waters with bitcoin as cryptocurrency starts to become more widely adopted.

The tech giant is enabling digital cards that store cryptocurrencies to be used on Google Pay, through partnerships with Coinbase, BitPay and Gemini, the company said. The news was earlier reported by Bloomberg.

Customers won't be able to directly spend in bitcoin, however. Transactions on Google Pay will still be in fiat currency.

“Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to,” Bill Ready, Google's president of commerce, told Bloomberg. “As user demand and merchant demand evolves, we’ll evolve with it.”

Google has also hired another executive from PayPal, Arnold Goldberg, to head its payments unit, as it seeks to revamp Google Pay. It recently pulled the plug on a simplified banking product operated in partnership with banks like Citigroup.

Tomio Geron

Tomio Geron ( @tomiogeron) is a San Francisco-based reporter covering fintech. He was previously a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, covering venture capital and startups. He was also as a staff writer at Forbes covering social media and venture capital, and edited the Midas List of top tech investors. He can be reached at tgeron@protocol.com or tgeron@protonmail.com.

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