Over the past two decades, Google has revolutionized the way information can be located and utilized. It has now become the standard internet tool for pretty much everything from maps to file storage.
The next step in Google’s world domination of data is blockchain.
This week the California-based search giant unveiled a raft of new tools to search for data and trends on the blockchain. As part of the company’s BigQuery data analytics platform, that sits on Google Cloud, a new range of datasets have been launched to enable researchers and data scientists to delve deeper into blockchains.
Last year Google released analytics tools to monitor transaction history for the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Lead programmers have taken time to monitor how developers used these data tools and queries in order to develop new ones. Six new crypto asset blockchains have now been added to the list of searchable technology.
Five of these have been selected due to their similarities to the Bitcoin blockchain and one is based on Ethereum. Using the new tools data analysts can now perform deep search queries on Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dash, Zcash and Dogecoin, all of which have been derived from the original Bitcoin technology. The final new addition to Google’s blockchain tools is Ethereum Classic, which was the original version of Ethereum before it split following a hack in 2016.
Allen Day, the company’s “Cloud Developer Advocate” and BigQuery project lead, said in a release that Google was “very interested to quantify what’s happening so that we can see where the real legitimate use cases are for blockchain.”
Google, says Days, thinks this use cases query needs to be acknowledged before the company can move on and “develop out what these technologies are really appropriate for.”
Google says it is using a machine learning tool that scans patterns in blockchain transactions in order to identify certain types of accounts or crypto addresses. Additionally the Blockchain ETL – extract, transform, load – platform has also been improved to allow multi-chain searches and real-time streaming of blockchain transactions.
Google’s strive for big data supremacy seems to know no real bounds and it is clear from these latest offerings that there is a big future in blockchain and also, probably, its application with digital currencies.
In-depth analytics, powered by Google’s deep pockets, will only provide useful insights into the embryonic industry and where it is likely to be heading in the future.