Google Cloud has unveiled a fresh Web3 portal that offers resources for blockchain developers, including tutorials and datasets on creating nonfungible tokens (NFTs). However, the response from the cryptocurrency industry has been somewhat mixed.
Unchained’s Vice President of Product Marketing, Phil Geiger, expressed his disappointment, saying, “No native Bitcoin and lightning support? Seems like an oversight to ignore the most important cryptocurrency,” in an X post on April 25.
Similarly, a pseudonymous crypto trader named MartyParty shared his lack of enthusiasm with his 80,700 X followers on April 26, stating, “Not impressed Google is way behind.”
Despite these criticisms, some individuals welcomed the launch. Ivaibi Festo, the founder of Mitroplus labs, described the Web3 portal as a “comprehensive resource” in an X post on April 25.
According to Google Cloud’s website, developers can access various products and receive testnet tokens to deploy and test their decentralized applications on Ethereum testnets Sepolia and Holesky. The platform also offers a learning program with tutorials on NFT development, implementing Web3 loyalty programs, and securing digital assets with multi-party computation.
This announcement comes after multiple recent developments by Google in the Web3 industry. Most notably, Google expanded its features to enable users to search wallet balances across multiple blockchains, including Bitcoin, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, Polygon, and Fantom.
In early 2024, Google updated its policies to allow certain crypto products to be advertised on major search engines, including Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. In 2023, Google focused on establishing partnerships in preparation for this year’s portal launch.
In October 2023, Google Cloud’s BigQuery data warehouse integrated with MultiversX, enabling Web3 projects and users to derive valuable insights from powerful data analytics and artificial intelligence tools within the Google Cloud ecosystem. Additionally, in September 2023, Google’s BigQuery added 11 blockchain networks to its data warehouse, including Avalanche, Arbitrum, Cronos, Ethereum’s Görli testnet, Fantom, Near, Optimism, Polkadot, Polygon’s mainnet, Polygon’s Mumbai testnet, and Tron.
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