Ethereum: SEC weighs in on cryptocurrency debate Watch Now

Google has announced a daily import of the Ethereum blockchain into its BigQuery service that will allow its users to conduct analysis.

The move follows a similar one at the start of 2018 that pulled the bitcoin blockchain into BigQuery.

As an example of the sort of query that can be conducted on the dataset, Google showed that the most transacted smart contract was for the CryptoKitty game, which has been used over 2.3 million times.

The Ethereum ETL project used to extract data from the blockchain notes that current limitations are: Contracts created by message calls are not included, around 10 percent of overall contract metadata is missing, and the need to cast token vales due to BigQuery storing them as strings.

The search giant said conducting analysis on the Ethereum blockchain will allow for better business decision-making, as well as knowing when Ethereum itself may need an upgrade.

Recently, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Ethereum was not covered by securities law when used to purchase goods and services.

"If the network on which the token or coin is to function is sufficiently decentralised -- where purchasers would no longer reasonably expect a person or group to carry out essential managerial or entrepreneurial efforts -- the assets may not represent an investment contract," SEC director of Corporation Finance William Hinman said in June.

"Based on my understanding of the present state of Ether, the Ethereum network, and its decentralised structure, current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions."

In February, researchers found that more than 30,000 Ethereum contracts were exploitable due to coding errors, leaving around $6 million of cryptocurrency vulnerable to theft.

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