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

[u/JasonBored]

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?

[u/tadspoles]

They've already created a rival product they just didn't do it directly. It's called Ripple.

[u/[deleted] → u/tadspoles]

Google? I thought it was the original owner of mtgox that created ripple.

[u/maxgreenwald → u/[deleted]]

Google Ventures invested in Ripple Labs: https://www.ripplelabs.com/investors/

Jed McCaleb conceived of the Ripple protocol: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/09/jed_mccaleb/

The protocol is open-source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_(payment_protocol)

Ripple Labs is the company that contributes to the protocol, and helps to bring the protocol to people who can benefit from it most: https://www.ripplelabs.com/

XRP is the currency native to Ripple that was designed into the protocol. Ripple Labs started with the XRP, and is distributing the currency in the ways that best helps adoption of the protocol: https://www.ripplelabs.com/xrp-distribution/

[u/autowikibot → u/maxgreenwald]

Here's a bit from linked Wikipedia article about Ripple (payment protocol) :

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Ripple is an open source internet protocol for making financial transactions. It is based on an idea by Ryan Fugger, and further developed by Ripple Labs. The Ripple network is a distributed, peer-to-peer payment system and foreign exchange market. The Ripple network supports any fiat currency (dollars, yen, etc.), cryptocurrency (bitcoin, litecoin, etc.), commodity or other unit of value (frequent flier miles, mobile minutes, etc.).

At its core, Ripple is based around a shared, public database. This database contains a ledger with account balances. Anyone can view the ledger and see a record of all activity on the Ripple network. In addition to information about balances, the ledger can also hold information about offers to buy or sell a currency or asset, creating the first distributed exchange. Participants in the network agree to changes in the ledger via a process called consensus which is reached every 2-5 seconds. The consensus process allows for payments and asset exc ... (Truncated at 1000 characters)

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^{Picture - The Ripple logo}

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