The Californian producer of software and consumer electronics, Apple, hasn’t been a fan of cryptocurrency since the sector had gained steam in 2012.
However, when its competitors, like Google PlayStore – which is relatively better in terms of supporting the listing of crypto apps – came up, Apple’s anti-crypto policies have proven hard for entrepreneurs in the space hoping to supply to the iOS market.
Not only are the smaller upstarts facing the burnt. Even giants like Coinbase – a firm rumored to have an $8 billion valuation per earlier reports – face recurrent issues, which CEO Brian Armstrong detailed in a Twitter thread in the past week.
Coinbase questions Apple’s policies
Armstrong started by mentioning, “Why would Apple want to prevent people from earning money during a recession? They seem to not be ok with it if it uses cryptocurrency. This is what our Coinbase Earn product does.” He referred to the broader borrowing and lending market in the crypto space, which was gained distinction in recent months across both the centralized players and “DeFi” protocols like Curve and Yearn Finance.
He then elaborated that even while Coinbase interacts with Apple to mature a product that conforms to the latter’s policies, it ends up lessening the user experience.
“We sometimes end up in bizarre negotiations with them, modifying the product, and asking users to jump through hoops (do a task on mobile, then move to the web to claim your reward!) to comply with their guidelines,” said Armstrong.
Armstrong has stated that DeFi and dApps are a “major area of innovation in financial services that has seen rapid growth lately.” The firm has listed several DeFi-centric projects in recent times, like Compound and YFI. On the other hand, Apple’s policies mean users cannot easily interrelate with the networks via Coinbase.
He enlightened the view:
“There are many unbanked and underbanked people in the world who have no ability to get a loan to buy a home or start a business, so this kind of technology has enormous potential to improve the world over time, even if it is still early days.”
He ended:
“Recently Apple announced a way for developers to suggest updates to the App Store policies. Our team is planning to submit a formal request for Apple to allow its users to earn crypto and see a list of decentralized finance apps.”
Are Apple policies understandable?
Temporarily, not everybody was against Apple’s decision to remove crypto applications based on security issues and consumer concerns. The overall consensus was that Apple had a good reason to prohibit cryptocurrencies based on the crypto market’s notorious aspects — the frauds, the scams, and the hateful actors.
“CryptoWhale,” a popular, anonymous commentator of the crypto markets on Twitter, said of the Coinbase CEO’s comments:
Gabor Gurbacs, the director of digital assets at ETF provider VanEck, shared the sentiment:
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