Google LLC’s cloud business today announced that it has signed a strategic partnership with Coinbase Global Inc., the operator of the most popular cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S.

The partnership includes multiple components. Coinbase will move several of its internal applications to Google Cloud’s infrastructure. Google Cloud, in turn, will use Coinbase technology to let a subset of its customers pay for cloud services in cryptocurrency.

“We want to make building in Web3 faster and easier, and this partnership with Coinbase helps developers get one step closer to that goal,” said Google Cloud Chief Executive Officer Thomas Kurian. “Our focus is making it frictionless for all customers to take advantage of our scalability, reliability, security and data services, so they can focus on innovation in the Web3 space.”

Coinbase intends to build an internal data platform on Google Cloud. As part of its efforts, the company will use the analytics services in Google Cloud to deliver “machine learning-driven crypto insights” to customers. Coinbase offers analytics features that customers can use to gain insight into cryptocurrency market movements.

The crypto exchanged also said it intends to draw on Google Cloud’s fiber-optic network to “enhance the global reach of its crypto services.” The search giant’s fiber-optic network, which includes several subsea internet cables, facilitates the rapid transfer of information between Google Cloud data centers. It helps speed up customer applications that require the ability to exchange information with workloads deployed in other data centers.

The partnership that the companies announced today also extends to Google Cloud’s BigQuery service. BigQuery is a managed data warehouse that organizations can use to analyze large amounts of information for useful business insights. As part of its feature set, the service offers a catalog of datasets that companies can incorporate into their software projects.

A subset of the datasets available in BigQuery provide access to transaction logs from popular blockchains. As part of its collaboration with Coinbase, Google Cloud will make those cryptocurrency-focused datasets more easily accessible to customers of Coinbase’s Cloud Nodes service. The latter service provides tools that make it simpler for developers to build Web3 applications.

In parallel, Google Cloud plans to adopt a Coinbase offering called Coinbase Commerce. It’s a platform that enables companies to accept payments in cryptocurrency. 

Google Cloud will use the service to allow a limited number of customers in the Web3 ecosystem to pay for its cloud services using cryptocurrency. According to CNBC, the search giant eventually intends to allow “many more customers” to make payments with cryptocurrency. Coinbase will earn a fee from the transactions that it processes.

Another component of the companies’ partnership focuses on the exchange’s Coinbase Prime service. The service, which debuted last year, provides institutional cryptocurrency investing tools that are geared towards organizations such as banks. Google Cloud has launched an initiative to explore ways it could use Coinbase Prime. 

“With more than 100 million verified users and 14,500 institutional clients, Coinbase has spent more than a decade building industry-leading products on top of blockchain technology,” said Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong. “We could not ask for a better partner to help execute our vision of building a trusted bridge into the Web3 ecosystem.”

The partnership with Coinbase comes less than a year after Google Cloud formed a dedicated digital assets unit. According to the search giant, the team’s responsibilities will include helping customers host blockchain nodes on Google Cloud. Nodes are servers that play a central role in processing blockchain transactions.

Image: Google