Google Gets the Crypto Telegram
October 7, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Not too many people cared that Google cut a deal with Alibaba’s ANT financial services outfit. My view is that at some point down the information highway, the agreement will capture more attention. Today (September 27, 2025), I want to highlight another example of Google’s getting a telegram about crypto.
Finding inspiration? Yep. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
Navigate to what seems to be just another crypto mining news announcement: “Cipher Mining Signs 168 MW, 10-Year AI Hosting Agreement with Fluidstack.”
So what’s a Cipher Mining? This is a publicly traded outfit engaged in crypto mining. My understanding is that the company’s primary source of revenue is bitcoin mining. Some may disagree, pointing to its business as “owner, developer and operator of industrial-scale data centers.”
The news release says:
[Cipher Mining] announces a 10-year high-performance computing (HPC) colocation agreement with Fluidstack, a premier AI cloud platform that builds and operates HPC clusters for some of the world’s largest companies.
So what?
The news release also offers this information:
Google will backstop $1.4 billion of Fluidstack’s lease obligations to support project-related debt financing and will receive warrants to acquire approximately 24 million shares of Cipher common stock, equating to an approximately 5.4% pro forma equity ownership stake, subject to adjustment and a potential cash settlement under certain circumstances. Cipher plans to retain 100% ownership of the project and access the capital markets as necessary to fund a portion of the project.
Okay, three outfits: crypto, data centers, and billions of dollars. That’s quite an information cocktail.
Several observations:
- Like the Alibaba / ANT relationship, the move is aligned with facilitating crypto activities on a large scale
- In the best tradition of moving money, Google seems to be involved but not the big dog. I think that Google may indeed be the big dog. Puzzle pieces that fit together? Seems like it to me.
- Crypto and financial services could — note I say “could” — be the hedge against future advertising revenue potholes.
Net net: Worth watching and asking, “What’s the next Google message received from Telegram?” Does this question seem cryptic? It isn’t. Like Meta, Google is following a path trod by a certain outfit now operating in Dubai. Is the path intentional or accidental? Where Google is concerned, everything is original, AI, and quantumly supreme.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2025
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