Though it was fourth in the size of its contributions, Samsung was leading the pack in the number - and eye-twitching variety - of crypto ventures it was making it rain on over an incredible 13 rounds of investing. Blockdata analysts said this limited slate of investments is an attempt to make concentrated bets on a small set of companies, but even with executive’s stated hopes for blockchain tech, it’s hard to see all investments truly panning out. Google had previously made much wider investments across a wider variety of blockchain-based companies. Previous reports showed they had put money into crypto companies like Ripple (which just like many small altcoins since the recent crypto crash, isn’t doing too hot). They’ve been investing in this tech since 2016, according to the Blockdata report.

Though it’s not like this is the first time we’ve heard about Google’s parent company Alphabet with their big financial interest in blockchain companies. If you don’t know, Three Arrows Capital collapsed and was ordered to liquidate back in June, taking many beleaguered crypto companies down with it.Ī representative from GV declined to comment about how they make investing decisions in an email statement. Another of Google’s investments, the Digital Currency Group, apparently had a $US1.2 ($1.73) billion claim against Three Arrows Capital, according to Bloomberg citing anonymous sources familiar with the proceedings. Multiple crypto exchanges proved unreliable as they restricted users from withdrawing their funds, fearing they would lose all liquidity. Of course, this was all before the most recent crypto crash, which has seen a multitude of once-strong crypto companies layoff thousands of workers. CapitalG, the company’s independent private equity firm, had a hand in the $US550 ($792) million raised by Fireblock, a crypto custody firm, as well as investments with digital currency venture capital company Digital Currency Group GV (Google’s investing arm once called Google Ventures) helped fund Dapper Labs and another crypto infrastructure company Voltage, which got $US6 ($8) million in total investments at the start of 2022. What makes this more complicated is there are actually two of Google’s investing arms involved in this fundraising. The company was also behind CryptoKitties, a NFT-based game that’s seen the price of its products tank. Some of the company’s overall funds went to the likes of Dapper Labs, the company that was behind the NBA’s Top Shot and UFC Strike licensed video NFTs. In the report, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, sat at the top of the pile showing it had put over $US1.5 ($2.16) billion into crypto companies over four rounds of investment. What Google chooses to invest in may help answer where the company wants to see blockchain tech go, or what it may want to incorporate into its own tech infrastructure. Still - so far this year - we’ve not seen hem nor hair of any public blockchain projects, despite creating a new blockchain group this past January. Earlier this year, CEO Sundar Pichai told investors they were “definitely looking at blockchain, it’s such an interesting and powerful technology with broad applications.” The Google boss further said they plan to allow blockchain-based businesses to use cloud computing and want to incorporate NFTs and crypto payments into their various platforms. Still others, like Google, have been much more subdued. Some of these companies, like PayPal, have been a longtime and verbal supporter of blockchain tech (thanks in part to its co-founder Peter Thiel). Researchers noted big tech firms including the likes of Tencent, Microsoft, PayPal, Samsung, and Alphabet (Google) are putting big money into crypto companies and startups.

Do you think of Google as a “Web3” company? No? Well at least as far as their investing portfolio is concerned, they’re deeper into blockchain and crypto technology than any other top publicly traded company, by far.īlockdata, a crypto research firm, released an updated blog post Tuesday showing who’s been the most active investors in the crypto scene from September 2021 through June 2022.

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