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Bakkt Taps Google Pay to Introduce Digital Assets to Millions of Consumers

Atlanta Georgia-based digital asset trading firm, Bakkt has inked a new partnership with Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to bring digital currency to more users around the world through Google Pay. As announced by the company, the partnership with Google will help extend the reach and usability of cryptocurrencies to meet rapidly evolving consumer demand and preferences.

The growth of the digital currency ecosystem is very visible today, as judged by the total market capitalization of $2.31 trillion. While the total number of investors, both retail and institutions that have an active investment in the nascent asset class is soaring by the day, those who are currently making plans to adopt Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are also on the rise. 

With the growing adoption across the board, many investors, particularly the retail holders are demanding increasing utility from their assets. The partnership between Bakkt and Google will help bridge this gap in a remarkable way. Through the partnership, Bakkt users will be able to add their virtual Bakkt® Visa® Debit Card (“Bakkt Card”) into Google Pay to purchase everyday goods and services online, in-store, or wherever Google Pay is accepted.

“This partnership is a testament to Bakkt’s strong position in the digital asset marketplace, to empower consumers to enjoy their digital assets in a real-time, secure, reliable manner,” said Gavin Michael, Bakkt CEO. “Additionally, partnering with Google Cloud will enable us to continue to build a best-in-class, innovative platform that can undoubtedly scale to meet the needs of millions of users.”

According to the announcement, volatile digital assets like Bitcoin will be converted to fiat currency for these payments to occur. This will protect merchants from any losses that may arise from holding digital currencies.

Beyond Google Pay: Bakkt to Utilize Google’s Cloud Infrastructure

The partnership will also see Bakkt leverage Google’s cloud infrastructure to host a variety of its proposed market solutions. The trading platform is making additional plans to create new analytics along with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and geolocation functionality on its platform to draw out deep, location-aware business insights leveraging Google Cloud’s industry-leading tools.

These plans will be beneficial to all the parties involved, as Bakkt’s clients will gain deep insights and expanded loyalty redemption options, while the exchange’s partners will gain access to usable consumer behavior patterns powered by Google Cloud infrastructure.

“Google Cloud has been at the forefront of accelerating digital commerce, powering many retailers and merchants,” said Kirsten Kliphouse, Google Cloud President of North America. “We are proud to help Bakkt accelerate and scale the availability of their innovative solutions, powered by our technologies.” 

The Google and Bakkt partnership is a complementary development in the embrace of blockchain startups by big tech companies. Earlier in March, Coinspeaker reported that Ethereum is now hosted on Amazon Managed Blockchain, boosting the decentralized capabilities of the ETH network.

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Bakkt Taps Google Pay to Introduce Digital Assets to Millions of Consumers