Google has expanded its capabilities to allow users to search for wallet balances across multiple blockchains, including Bitcoin, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, Polygon, and Fantom. By entering the wallet address, users can see the token balance by network and the time of the last update.
Users can search for three Bitcoin address formats – P2PKH, P2SH, and Bech32 – and view their current balances and recent transactions.
This integration of Bitcoin data into search results enhances Google’s accessibility to on-chain activity, leveraging its extensive daily search volume.
While some people see Google’s new feature as a step towards mainstream adoption, Bitcoin supporters who prioritize privacy have expressed concerns about centralized data aggregation and its impact on privacy.
Google’s latest feature follows its introduction of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain search results, which allows users to check wallet balances using readable domain names like “vitalik.eth” for Ethereum wallet addresses.
This recent expansion builds on Google’s initial introduction of Ethereum wallet balance searches in May 2023. In 2022, Google incorporated a crypto feature that enables some Ethereum wallet addresses to have their Ether (ETH) balances tracked by the Google search engine, eliminating the need to visit Etherscan.
The addition of wallet searches marks a change in Google’s approach. In 2018, Google banned Bitcoin-related advertisements but recently reversed its stance, allowing advertisements for spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) following their approval in the United States in January. Search results now include ETF products from prominent asset managers like BlackRock.
In October 2022, Google partnered with Coinbase to enable its customers to pay for cloud services with cryptocurrency.
The tech company also celebrated the Ethereum Merge event, which marks Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) in 2022, by featuring animated pandas moving in unison.
In 2023, Google Cloud collaborated with Web3 startup Orderly Network to develop user-centric developer tools for decentralized finance (DeFi) in order to lower the entry barriers into the decentralized world. This collaboration aimed to address the major challenges of entry barriers and security issues that have long plagued the DeFi ecosystem.
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