Abner Li / 9to5Google:
— Google Search is home to various tools and the latest lets you look up Bitcoin addresses to show the balance of any wallet.
Announced on Tuesday, you can “Search for any of your wallet addresses across bitcoin and five new EVM networks.” The latter (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is a component of another cryptocurrency.
Enter a Blockchain address into Google Search and the first result will be a card noting your Bitcoin balance and when it was last updated. Google notes that this is the “Balance as of last transaction. Supported formats include: P2PKH, P2SH, and Bech32. Extended public key addresses are not currently supported.”
All Bitcoin transactions are public on a distributed ledger, the “blockchain.” Knowing an address cannot reveal the owner, while the private key is what’s needed (and has to be kept secure) to retain control.
Meanwhile, Google Search will also show Ethereum balances. It’s looking at Arbitrum, Avalanche, Fantom, Optimism, and Polygon. This joins other tools like searching for the price of Bitcoin (e.g., BTC USD) like you would with any other stock.
— Techmeme