Cryptocurrencies have faced a lot of restrictions and criticism from big tech-firms over the years. While these digital assets continue on their pursuit to innovate payments and transactions, its new direction hasn’t always taken flight with other major corporations.
Now, one of the major organizations that have been rigid towards certain innovations over the years has been Apple, and in a recent conversation, the entities’ “rules” were under the spotlight.
Remember: Apple’s iOS rules would not have allowed for the invention of the web browser. Let that sink in. They would have rejected one of the most important technical innovations in the history of computing. Microsoft‘s bully tactic of making IE free seems quaint in comparison.
— Francisco Tolmasky (@tolmasky@mastodon.social) (@tolmasky) August 22, 2020
In response to this thread on Twitter, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase also raised his voice and suggested that Apple hasn’t been very cordial about cryptocurrency transactions as well. according to Armstrong, Apple has been very “restrictive and hostile” towards digital assets over the years as the CEO suggested that the company has been repetitively blocking some of the major crypto functions.
He added,
“They’re still blocking some functionality right now, including the ability to earn money with cryptocurrency by completing tasks, and unrestricted dApp browsers.”
Armstrong was probably talking about the Coinbase Earn exchange, an initiative that allows its users to earn cryptocurrency like Bitcoin by learning about it. Coinbase also cited its reasons back in December 2019 that it had to comply with the AppStore rule and hence removed the functionality of the dApp browser from their application.
Back then, Armstrong suggested that the decentralized form of innovation was an important move in the world of finance and a majority of early adopters had millions of dollars worth of crypto tied to these financial applications.
Apple’s long-legal problems with other organization
For Apple, their restrictions currently go far beyond in-app functionality. A week earlier, Epic Games filed a legal suit against Apple Inc. for allegedly monopolizing third-party payments markets and making innovations such as BTC payments impossible.
According to the lawsuit, Apple had imposed “an oppressive” 30% sales tax on application sales with the game and also made third-party payments redundant.
Epic Games had put forward a request in front of the U.S District Court of Northern District California to force Apple to not act in an an-competitive manner and let go of their hold over the in-app payments system.