Google parent company Alphabet invests $1.5 billion in four blockchain companies

Alphabet has joined other top companies that are investing in the future by pumping over $1.5 billion into four blockchain-related companies. The company has now become the biggest known investor in blockchain technology. The money was released in four rounds of investment running from September 2021 to June 2022 with the whole amount going to the blockchain companies, Fireblocks, Digital Currency Group, Voltage and Dapper Labs.

Alphabet’s closest competitor is the investment management company, Blackrock that has poured $1.171 billion into the emerging technology within the same period. Combined, the top forty companies which include other big names like Samsung, PayPal and Microsoft have invested a total of $6 billion within the same period.

The decision to invest in just four companies could be an indicator that Alphabet is shifting from broad investment into the emerging industry and choosing to focus on companies that share a common interest.

This observation was also echoed by blockchain information vendor, Blockdata in its report on the investments by writing, “Alphabet and Blackrock are showcasing a completely different strategy by making concentrated bets on a smaller set of companies.”

To support the argument Blockdata notes that Alphabet invested in 23 companies over the same period last year.

The tech giant’s massive investment into the emerging technology will serve to further solidify the idea that Alphabet, and its subsidiary Google, have embraced blockchain and Web3 and will play a critical role in advancing the technologies.

It was only a few months ago when Google Cloud confirmed plans to create a dedicated Web3 team that will help customers looking to launch products around the blockchain, including NFTs and cryptocurrency.

“On web3, we are definitely looking at blockchain, and such an interesting and powerful technology with broad applications, so much broader, again, than any one application. So as a company, we are looking at how we might contribute to the ecosystem and add value,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in Google’s quarter 4 earnings call, early this year.