What Happened?
Google Cloud's BigQuery service has announced the addition of 11 new blockchain networks to its data warehouse. The networks include Avalanche, Arbitrum, Cronos, Ethereum Görli testnet, Fantom, Near, Optimism, Polkadot, Polygon mainnet, Polygon Mumbai testnet, and Tron.
What is BigQuery?
BigQuery is Google's data warehouse service that allows enterprise firms to store and query data. It also offers access to public datasets such as Google Trends, American Community Service demographic information, and Google Analytics.
Expanding Blockchain Coverage
Google began including blockchain data in BigQuery in 2018, starting with a Bitcoin dataset and later adding Ethereum. The coverage expanded further in 2019 with the addition of Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Dogecoin, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and Zcash. With the latest announcement, BigQuery now supports a total of 19 blockchain networks.
New Feature for Easier Blockchain Queries
Alongside the new blockchains, Google has introduced a feature to simplify blockchain queries. Through user-defined functions (UDFs), customers can handle the long-form decimal results typically found on blockchains. Google claims that these new functions will enhance access to decimal digits and reduce rounding errors in computation.
Google's Growing Interest in Blockchain
Google Cloud has been actively engaging with blockchain technology. In July, it partnered with Voltage, a Lightning Network infrastructure provider. More recently, on September 14, it collaborated with Web3 startup Orderly Network to offer off-chain components for decentralized finance.
