Ethereum’s position as the default smart-contract settlement layer for tokenized finance is facing a new test after Google Cloud revealed plans for a Layer-1 network—Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL)—explicitly aimed at financial institutions and programmable with Python.

Google Cloud Enters The Arena

In a LinkedIn post, Rich Widmann, Google Cloud’s global head of Web3 strategy, said the company’s ledger is “performant, credibly neutral and enables Python-based smart contracts,” adding that “any financial institution can build with GCUL” and that “we’ll be releasing more technical details in the coming months.” He framed the move as a response to the wave of corporate base-layer initiatives: “All this talk of Layer 1 blockchains has brought Google’s own Layer 1 into focus. As a product leader in crypto, you know that if you’re building a Layer 1 it has to be differentiated.”

Widmann cast GCUL as part of a three-horse race now forming alongside Stripe’s “Tempo” and Circle’s “Arc,” and published an infographic that positioned Google’s effort as a “planet-scale” Google-developed L1 rather than an EVM chain. The comparative table said Stripe is building an EVM L1 tethered to its payments stack and custody/onboarding rails, and Circle’s Arc is an EVM L1 with “USDC as native gas,” an integrated FX engine and sub-second finality.

By contrast, GCUL is “built for finance,” designed to support “native commercial bank money on-chain,” and—crucially—relies on Python-based smart contracts. The architecture choice matters for Ethereum: EVM chains (Arc, and reportedly Tempo) hew to Ethereum’s developer lingua franca and tooling, while a Python-native L1 suggests a clean break from Solidity-first ecosystems that dominate Ethereum and its rollups.

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Author: Jake Simmons