Google partners with NFT leader Dapper Labs to support blockchain-based Web 3.0

Search engine giant Google partnered with Canadian blockchain firm Dapper Labs to help bolster Web 3.0 development, including blockchain gaming and the NFT marketplace. The blockchain company’s CEO Roham Gharegozlou tweeted about the deal on Tuesday, noting that the firm was “amped to welcome Google to the Flow blockchain.”

According to Forbes, Google Cloud will serve as a network operator for Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain, the scalable infrastructure that powers an entire ecosystem of NFTs, games, and apps.

Speaking with Forbes’ contributor, Janet Kennedy, the vice president of Google Cloud North America, explained that “it’s really about helping them with rapid and sustainable growth.” She said the multi-year partnership would help Dapper expand its operations through “scalable, secure infrastructure” provided by Google.

Kennedy also elaborated that blockchain tech is continuing to advance.

“Blockchain technology is becoming more and more mainstream. So companies like Dapper need scalable, secure infrastructure to grow their business, and even more importantly, support their networks,” she noted.

Google has also help Flow developers to integrate with its software, which gives them an additional stimulus to work with Google Cloud instead of rival platforms like Amazon Web Services.

Dapper Labs is the team behind projects like Cryptokitties, NBA Top Shot, and the Dapper Wallet. Additionally, Dapper Labs also operates the Flow blockchain project which aims to be “built for the next generation of apps, games, and the digital assets that power them.” On Twitter, the CEO of Dapper Labs, Roham Gharegozlou, confirmed the partnership as well and mentioned a few statistics.

“Amped to welcome Google to [the] Flow blockchain,” Gharegozlou twitted. “In 1 year since #onFlow mainnet: 2.2M unique wallets, less than half from @nbatopshot, 248 mainnet contracts (cf @flowverse_), [and] 18.5M blocks and 49.7M tx. Now with 3000+ new devs building, Google jumps onboard to help scale,” he added.

The Dapper partnership is only the latest in the number of Google deals in the blockchain space. Last year, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company joined the governing council of enterprise-grade distributed ledger network Hedera Hashgraph, which leads strategic planning for the Hedera network and works to ensure its stability. Earlier in 2019, the Internet behemoth launched a suite of tools on its BigQuery data analytics platform that made blockchain data for bitcoin and a few other major cryptocurrencies fully searchable.

Following the first iteration, Web 1.0, defined by simple static websites, and the next stage, also known as Web 2.0, dominated by user-generated content and social media, in the Web 3.0 era of the Internet, which opens the floodgates to decentralized networks and new methods of communication and commerce, Google also envisions playing an important role.

“This new evolution of consumers reimagining their relationship, their ownership of digital assets, digital collectibles—this is just the very beginning,” Kennedy said. “We’re really excited about the work that Dapper Labs is doing and that we’re providing that infrastructure and security for them.”