Meanwhile, the bitcoin price has climbed this year, largely due to interest in bitcoin and crypto from the world's biggest technology companies–with others, including the likes of iPhone-maker Apple and online retailer Amazon, branching out into traditional financial services. Now, Google, in partnership with U.S. banking giant Citigroup, has said it's planning to launch its own fully-fledged "smart checking" bank accounts via Google Pay–piling pressure on bitcoin developers to improve user experience and adoption or face redundancy. Google does not currently share data from its Google Pay service, which boasted an estimated 11.1 million U.S. users last year, with advertisers. Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have, meanwhile, struggled to attract new users and retail acceptance with price speculation still the biggest driver of bitcoin interest. The bitcoin price rallied earlier this year amid reports some of the world's biggest technology ... [+] companies were about to jump into bitcoin and crypto but has since stalled as regulatory fears mount.

Source: Forbes November 17, 2019 01:18 UTC