EXCLUSIVE: How Google Is Tapping Into Its Own DNA To Help Fuel The Growth Of Web3

Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL is using its deep-rooted technology experience to help Web3 companies pull the right levers in the crypto world.

What To Know: Richard Widmann, head of Web3 strategy at Google Cloud, detailed Alphabet's approach to Web3 Tuesday at Benzinga Future of Digital Assets in New York City. 

"One of the things that was most exciting about starting this team is not even really, you know, selling the products and services that Google has within the cloud sector, but it's actually tapping into that sort of original DNA of Google, which is frankly an engineering and a developer based DNA," Widmann said.

Google is more than Search. The company is rooted in its deep developer community and leveraging those roots to put its fingerprint on Web3 development. A lot of the same developer community that helped fuel the SaaS boom more than a decade ago is acting as the soil for the next wave of innovation, he said. 

"We've seen this cycle a couple of times and we know what those core ingredients are and what we're trying to do is bring the same ingredients into this ecosystem," Widmann said. 

The goal is to help foster the growth of companies that offer crypto trading, NFT trading or other digital asset services and ultimately allow those companies to scale to the level of Google. 

Widmann's background is in cloud and the legal space. He spent a lot of his early years in crypto identifying challenges that startups faced and figuring out why there were problems. 

He realized that a lot of the problems stemmed from failures in infrastructure and technology tooling. One way Google is tackling this problem is by offering managed node services for anyone in the Ethereum ETH/USD developer community who wants help running and maintaining nodes for a flat fee, Widmann said. 

"We decided that's something Google can do really well. We're going to play to our strengths in that regard," he said. 

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Another way Google is helping companies succeed in the Web3 world is on the data availability side of things. Google takes blockchain data, ingests it and allows anyone doing analytics or building dashboards to leverage that data and add their own secret sauce, he said. 

"Making it easier for people to build those kinds of businesses, that's what we do," Widmann said. 

The crypto space has had its fair share of missteps, but what's changing now is that organizations are starting to try to play to their own strengths instead of jumping into something new. Companies are figuring out how to leverage the technology to their advantage, he said. 

The years 2018, 2019 and 2020 were sort of like the age of experimentation and exploration and now companies are becoming more thoughtful about using technology to solve business problems that they are experiencing, he said. 

"Everyone's talking about, you know, the Bitcoin ETF and some of the things that are happening there. I think all of that is a result of decreased barriers to entry because the technology is getting a little easier for people to understand and to implement," Widmann said.

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Photo: Richard Widmann, by Piboon Thongtanyong for Benzinga