Google, through its Cloud service, established a partnership with Voltage, which aims to expand the bitcoin payment service via the Lightning network. This service allows hosting of network nodes on their servers.
The association was confirmed by the Google Cloud account on Twitter, this June 1. The objective of this association is aimed at merchants and businesses, since they will be able to host their Lightning network node within Google servers, with a monthly payment fee. Depending on the chosen capacity of the node, the fee to be paid will be set.
In addition to this, the system will allow you to open a node with a few simple clicks, which transfers the workload and maintenance to Google's servers. The node in question allows the reception of bitcoin payments from businesses, as well as the generation of LNURL-type invoices.
Users will be able to host the node, in a first stage, in 3 different locations: Iowa (United States), the Netherlands and Singapore.
In the announcement, it is not defined who will keep the private keys of the node. However, the services offered by Voltage are non-custodial, so it could be assumed that the same concept will be maintained.
Google Cloud is a set of resources for software-level solutions. It offers facilities such as data storage, virtual machines, development tools, among others.
This would not be the first time that Google has ventured into the Bitcoin ecosystem. In 2022, the news broke that the company partnered with Coinbase to carry out projects in Web 3.0
Voltage is a company that offers payment services through the Bitcoin Lightning network, at a commercial level, with easy access. The company is in charge of the administration and maintenance of the nodes, leaving all the control to its users.
