Is Google trying to kill Bitcoin?
Google, the internet search giant that owns video-sharing site YouTube and the Android mobile operating system, has a fraught relationship with bitcoin and crypto.
Bitcoin services, websites, and apps have regularly provoked Google’s ire in recent years, whether intentionally or not, causing some to cry censorship.
In its latest move against bitcoin-related products and services, Google suddenly removed bitcoin rewards game Bitcoin Blast from the Google Play app store, claiming it used “deceptive practices.”
Last month, the developers of Bitcoin Blast, a match-three puzzle game that rewards users with bitcoin-redeemable loyalty points and boasts a 4.5 rating from some 20,000 ratings and 13,000 reviews, complained Google had suspended their app without giving them a clear reason why.
The app, which has also been available on the Apple App Store for a year without issue, has now been reinstated but only after its developers, Bling, made a public plea for help, echoing a similar situation late last year when Google’s YouTube banned many of the most popular bitcoin-related creators on the platform only to, mostly, reverse the decision in the wake of the subsequent backlash.
Shortly after the YouTube crackdown, Google suspended the popular MetaMask crypto wallet and mobile browser app backed by ethereum incubator ConsenSys from the Play Store, only to eventually reinstate it.
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