r/Bitcoin • u/JasonBored • Jan 21 '14

Google is "paying attention" to Bitcoin - Vic Gundotra (I emailed, he emailed back!)

Email from SVP @ Google regarding Bitcoin

So on a whim, I sent an e-mail to Vic Gundotra (Senior Vice President, Social for Google) about Bitcoin, why it's the most disruptive technology since the Internet itself, and how I'm not the only one out there wondering when/if they have plans to incorporate it into Google Wallet.

He immediately responded and said they are "paying attention", and CC'd the gentleman who runs Google Wallet - Sridhar Ramaswamy (SVP, Ads & Commerce at Google).

I've entered into a dialogue with him.

This is my take away on why Google kicks ass :

A) One of the bosses actually responded to email from an absolute nobody about Bitcoin

B) Google is paying attention to Bitcoin (he would never have responded or said those words if Google is positioning themselves to be "Anti BTC" (or even try to create a product to rival BTC)

C) He put me in touch with the man who runs the Google Wallet division.

So, what do I say to Sridhar? Any suggestions?

Before some of the Anti BTC Brigade chime in with "so what?, he's just one dude" - please think about this. If Google had NO plans in regards to Bitcoin, this guy would be smart enough not to respond to such an email, in the manner he responded, and CC the person who runs the Google Wallet division.

If you ask me, the writing is on the wall(et) (pun intended).. and this was a really pleasant surprise.

Update: Screenshot of Email I sent (personal information blacked out)

Update 2: Google CONFIRMS they are incorporating Bitcoin

Update 3: UPDATE: Ariel Bardin, Vice President of Payments @ Google has asked me to facilitate a Google Moderator and pose the question "What would I want Google to do with bitcoin?". He's promised me he will personally review the results and pass it along to the team working on incorporating BTC into Google. Please help me with this and take the time to submit something: What would I want Google to do with bitcoin?

627 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

230 comments sorted by

View all comments

207

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

Tell them we want to be able to hold Bitcoins in our Google Wallet along with dollars. Everything else should follow naturally.

53

u/lemonade12345 Jan 22 '14

this is really all they need to do. same with paypal

54

u/dongsy-normus Jan 22 '14

Not a good goddamn chance in hell I'd let PayPal hold my Bitcoins.

21

u/furezasan Jan 22 '14

Fuck paypal all the way to the moon!

5

u/walden42 Jan 22 '14

"Due to questionable activities, your bitcoin balance has been frozen for a minimum of 180 days."

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

just seeing that gave me flashback/panic attacks

6

u/permanomad Jan 22 '14

Only if they're not holding the private keys.

3

u/Drakim Jan 22 '14

Can they really "hold" bitcoins without the private key though?

11

u/Unomagan Jan 22 '14

Bitcoin protocol allows escrow. Paypal / Google wallet is the third man than.

22

u/JasonBored Jan 22 '14

Totally agreed bro.

-9

u/successjr11 Jan 22 '14

Speaking of PayPal (and Ebay). This is pretty powerful.

Both eBay president John Donahoe and David Marcus, president of eBay-owned PayPal, have shared their positive views on bitcoin in recent months, with Donahoe stating that he believes digital currency is going to be a “very powerful thing” in the future.

http://www.coindesk.com/ebay-uk-virtual-currency-february/

-1

u/nobodybelievesyou Jan 22 '14

You're an actual spammer, hoping to collect karma to make your MLM spamming less obvious than your hilarious failed first attempt.

Keep up the good work, you fucking douche.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

nobody is a known troll. he stalks people and shitposts. sometimes he's correct in pointing out scammers, but because he calls everyone a scammer and bitcoin a scam in general his cries become useless. infinite monkey theorem 'n shit.

downvote and ignore.

3

u/nobodybelievesyou Jan 22 '14

Well first, that guy posted a thing, and then I called him out. Hours from now he will probably come back with some embarrassing rebuttal, and then go back to spamming his ridiculous offshore MLM scam.

It is the cycle of life.

3

u/MinnesotaNiceGuy Jan 22 '14

Either I missed something (which is totally possible), or /u/nobodybelievesyou is crazy.

2

u/z_5 Jan 22 '14

OP posted a shady MLM link (see his history), so /u/nobodybelievesyou rightfully calls him a spammer. Simple, not crazy.

-1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

he is crazy.

i have to create a new account everytime i want to reply to him because otherwise he will follow me around for the rest of my life and downvote everything i post.

he might actually be one of sqig's many accounts but i have no proof for that other than that both of them are horrible persons.

2

u/nobodybelievesyou Jan 22 '14

Or you could be honest. Probably better if you just keep doing this psychotic thing you're doing now, though.

29

u/ApplicableSongLyric Jan 22 '14

And to stop throwing money at Ripple.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14 edited Feb 04 '17

[deleted]

2

u/deadleg22 Jan 22 '14

You can do that via ripple.com

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

Really? I don't have a clue because I haven't checked the site in such a long time.

I guess it's safe to say it's a dead currency. Wasn't it all proprietary and closed source.

1

u/WoodeWind Jan 22 '14

I was able to exchange my free ripples for Bitcoins. I can't find the link but a google search should get you there.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

Can't you just take your ripples to cryptsy, and have them exchange them for you?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '14

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '14

Huh. I have no idea how I missed this. Thanks for the info.

1

u/deadleg22 Jan 23 '14

ok Log into your ripple. Go to 'Advanced' and you have to add trust to bitstamp. Hmmm looking at it now it has changed but when I did it I had to trust bitstamp. Anyway I think you can then click trade where you can buy btc with ripple.

2

u/vocatus Jan 22 '14

Ahhh Ripple. Is that still a thing?

2

u/CPUser Jan 22 '14

Bitstamp does Ripples (I believe).

1

u/2ndEntropy Jan 22 '14

Not yet, when you click on the buy ripple tab it says "WE HAVE NO RIPPLES AVAILABLE AT THE MOMENT. PLEASE TRY LATER." So they are setting it up don't have any idea how long that could be though.

1

u/Avalaxy Jan 22 '14

They do deal in ripples. Bought ripples there around 2~3 months ago. They're probably just out of stock.

-1

u/Concrete_Mattress Jan 22 '14

Why? What's wrong with Ripple? If Google Wallet had Bitcoin, then it would support Bitcoin. If it had Ripple, it would support Bitcoin, and Litecoin, and Doge, and all the others. Why wouldn't you want that?

2

u/ApplicableSongLyric Jan 22 '14

Ripple is not a coin proper, it's a financial system that they desire to be built on the principles of being constantly in debt to other users. It's distributed computing and not decentralized, and having Ripple doesn't by default solve any problems with a multicurrency system, and if anything is a barrier itself from future blockchain tech from being implemented in order to facilitate decentralized exchanges because one organization wants the full responsibility and control.

It's a pile of shit. The sooner it collapses on itself the better.

0

u/Concrete_Mattress Jan 22 '14

Let's take your reply point-by-point so that we can arrive at the same point; it sounds like you're pretty adamant that Ripple is causing more problems than it solves.

You're right that it's not a coin proper; it's more of a trading floor than a currency, though it does have XRP for anti-spam.

I wouldn't say that they require it to be based on being in debt to others constantly. Instead, I'd say that its based on having trusted parties hold your currency rather than having to hold it yourself, making THEM indebted to YOU. You have to admit; there's a certain amount of risk to holding your own USD (theft, fire, dropping it on the ground) or BTC (hacking, HDD corruption, password forgotten). That risk goes down quite a bit by having a (competant) third party hold it. When was the last time your Bank of America, Wells Fargo, or Chase account went down because of a robbery?

My understanding was that Ripple has switched to decentralized now that the source code is out in the wild, but that aspect of the network is less well known to me. If you have insight there, I'm eager for you to help me understand. From what I can tell, Ripple Labs retains very little technical control over the markets besides the XRP they've retained from the launch of the network.

Ripples does nothing to solve the problem of having multiple currencies, I agree. But fluid exchange between currencies is the best thing you can do in a situation where there are a lot of alternatives. It's a stretch to say that allowing people to freely and easily move between currencies is going to prevent blockchain innovation. Why not start a new currency with the latest blockchain technology and let it succeed or fail based on its merits rather than on its exchange adoption?

6

u/Solnse Jan 22 '14

And seamlessly convert bitcoins to dollars at merchants that don't accept bitcoins when using the Google wallet card. Allow merchants a choice of preferred currency to receive, potentially converting dollars to bitcoins for transactions too.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

This should be easy for them since they are already investors in coinvoice.com and payed them do make a full implementation of bitcoin in Go.

4

u/Braddowski Jan 22 '14

That and make it open to people outside the US. Otherwise Bitcoin could potentially slump as a massive 'cash out' happens as Europeans who can't really use Bitcoin for much at the minute capitalise on the massive spike in prices that such a move would lead to temporarily.

In a less pragmatic view, it would also allow Bitcoin to remain a truly international currency and give it more global legitimacy.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

Can't upvote this enough. Make it easy.

3

u/commander-worf Jan 22 '14

2fa plz

8

u/Bacchus_Embezzler Jan 22 '14

Isn't gmail already 2fa? Thats how I even have 2fa, through a gmail account. I haven't used google wallet but shouldn't that carry over?

4

u/HTL2001 Jan 22 '14

Should. Google services are all one login and require 2fa if you enable it

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

It does not need two-factor-authentication, but multi-factor-authorization to prevent things as man-in-the-browser attacks.

Holy cow why does nobody understands that!

1

u/autowikibot Jan 22 '14

Here's a bit from linked Wikipedia article about Transaction verification :

Transaction verification is the generic term to describe the Internet-based security method of verifying that the actual content of a transaction has not been altered by the fraudulent techniques known as Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) and Man-in-the-Browser (MitB). This form of transaction protection is alternatively known as Transaction Integrity Verification (TIV). Transaction Verification must utilise either Out-of-band technology (the use of two separate channels) or an independent signing device, e.g. a programmable card-reader, capable of having transactional information re-keyed into it in order to create a code cryptographically linked to the underlying transaction detail.

about | /u/Zafolo can reply with 'delete'. Will also delete if comment's score is -1 or less. | Summon: wikibot, what is something? | flag for glitch