Google Says It Has "No Current Plans Regarding Bitcoin"

An anonymous reader writes "A popular Reddit submission today suggested Google's payment team was looking to incorporate Bitcoin, naturally sparking a lot of excitement in the virtual currency community. TNW reached out to Google regarding the claim and learned that it was indeed false. 'As we continue to work on Google Wallet, we're grateful for a very wide range of suggestions,' a Google spokesperson told TNW. 'While we're keen to actively engage with Wallet users to help inform and shape the product, there's no change to our position: we have no current plans regarding Bitcoin.'"

Comments

Bitcoin?

[Zaldarr]

We all know dogecoin is the future.

It's called Gcoin now.

[RevWaldo]

Try to keep up.

.

Re:It's called Gcoin now.

[QilessQi]

You know, if a company like Amazon or Google -- with their immense server farms for mining -- did come up with its own cryptocoin, it could tilt the masses towards accepting the idea of cryptocurrencies, while simultaneously taking a huge bite out of Bitcoin's future potential.

Imagine an Amazoncoin, AZC, providing everything that BTC provides plus...
- convenient support for payment to Amazon.com or transactions throughout the web
- theft-insurance-backed online wallets for people who are unwilling to manage wallets on their own
- nice incentives for mining companies willing to partner with them to support AZC transactions in the early days.

Re:It's called Gcoin now.

[Patch86]

Loads of companies (perhaps even a majority of retailers) already do issue "their own currency"- in the form of in-store credit vouchers. In principal there's no reason why you couldn't go down to your local convenience store and pay for a loaf of bread and bottle of milk with iTunes vouchers- a currency which is "backed" by "real goods" (i.e., the currency can be redeemed at any time at the "central bank" in exchange for useful goods (music and whatnot), in the manner of a gold-backed currency).

The fact that nobody does this tells you a lot about the majority of the population's attitude towards corporate controlled private currencies. To most people, they seem like a completely unnecessary way of abstracting on top of an already perfectly valid currency system. There's no reason to assume people would feel any differently towards "Amazon Coins" than they do towards Amazon gift vouchers, regardless of the techy details behind it.

I still remain deeply sceptical that BitCoin is anything other than an enthusiast's curiosity and/or "get rich quick" scheme, and can't imagine it going the distance. I've been wrong plenty of times before, but...well, I'm not changing my mind on that one yet.

Still.

[rmdingler]

Here lately, more mainstream companies are coming out in favor of accepting it.

Casinos in Vegas was the last one I recall... maybe this thing has legs.

Can it be that our fiat monetary systems are so flawed that this is a reasonable alternative for some folks?

That's all they can say!

[brxndxn]

Just because they say 'we have no current plans for Bitcoin' does not mean they don't have people working on exploring the technical aspects, the legal aspects, the social, and financial aspects. It would be a huge decision for a company like Google to say anything definitive about Bitcoin at this point - considering anything positive from Google would most likely double the Bitcoin price. And, doubling the Bitcoin price would do that much more to solidify its place in the financial world.

In other words, it will happen with or without Google - starting with much smaller companies first. Two years ago, the Bitcoin community was excited to see a $1million/year revenue company announce they are taking Bitcoin. Now, Overstock.com and Tigerdirect both take Bitcoin. Don't expect anything from Google for a while..

Who would sign on?

[SuperKendall]

if a company like Amazon or Google -- with their immense server farms for mining -- did come up with its own crypto coin

Approximately none of the users of Bitcoin today would switch for (rightful) fear of being tracked out the wazoo. The cash-like nature of Bitcoin would undoubtedly being severely undermined if coming from a company like Google...

It's a lot harder to prop up a currency that a significant number of people will accept than most people think.

Re:Who would sign on?

[dbIII]

computer-savvy and security-minded

That's what they LIKE to think about themselves, but unless they are early adopter perpetrators of this scam they are just deluded suckers instead.

I wonder if we can use the "security" window dressing in bitcoin to track down the ransomware virus people? That may finally be a good use for bitcoin.

Dogecoin is performance art

[SuperKendall]

And not even particularly good performance art.

How long can a joke possibly go on before it grows stale? Dogecoin seeks to find the answer.

Transaction system not a monetary system

[perpenso]

Here lately, more mainstream companies are coming out in favor of accepting it. Casinos in Vegas was the last one I recall... maybe this thing has legs. Can it be that our fiat monetary systems are so flawed that this is a reasonable alternative for some folks?

The casino and various other companies are accepting bitcoins as payment but they do not hold any bitcoins. For the casino your bill is computed in $US, they compute the current bitcoin equivalent when you are ready to pay, accept payment and immediately have the bitcoins converted to $US. The casino avoids the bank/credit card transaction fees and surcharges. The bitcoin payment processor used has no transaction fees, just a flat monthly fee.

It seems that bitcoins are more of a replacement for credit cards, in other words a transaction system rather than a replacement monetary system.

Google cancelled Wallet for 3rd parties

[DogDude]

Google just folded up their Google Wallet service for merchants a few weeks ago. I think they've just finished up their venture into online payments to anybody other than themselves. I would think that anybody who actually had any real information about the current state of online payment stuff would know that,

Besides, the article is on Reddit, a website that currently has, as it's top story, "This actually happened on MSNBC today (youtube.com)"

This was a horribly uninformed Slashdot article, all around.