Ex-App Store Director: “Apple Has Always Had A Problem With Crypto”
Ex-App Store Director: “Apple Has Always Had A Problem With Crypto”.
Shoemaker’s Comments
In an interview with Decrypt, former Apple App Store Director, Phillip Shoemaker, explains that Apple has continuously kept its harsh stance against cryptocurrencies and NFT platforms due to the guidelines made by late Apple founder Steve Jobs before his passing.
Shoemaker, who had worked in the giant tech company for over seven years from 2009 until 2016 explains that the company had always had a negative view towards cryptocurrencies, labelling them as Ponzi schemes.
“Apple had a problem with crypto from day one. They thought it was a Ponzi scheme,” Shoemaker told Decrypt.
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Apple vs Crypto
In the past, Apple has been criticized many times by the Crypto community due to their way of handling crypto and NFT-related platforms.
Apple’s policy forces all platforms on its App Store to apply a 30% commission for all in-app payments, including NFT and crypto transactions. This policy caused issues last seen in December when popular crypto platform Coinbase Wallet was blocked from the App Store after failing to comply with Apple’s 30% cut of the gas fees, a request that is technically impossible to comply with.
“For anyone who understands how NFTs and blockchains work, this is clearly not possible,” Coinbase said at the time. “Apple’s proprietary In-App Purchase system does not support crypto so we couldn’t comply even if we tried.”
Earlier in 2022, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also criticized the major tech company, arguing that “Apple so far has not really played nice with crypto.”
“They have actually banned a bunch of features that we would like to have in the app, but they just won’t allow it – so there’s potential antitrust issues there.”
Good example of the kinds of discussions we have with Apple on a monthly basis, to deal with their app store monopoly. It's gotten pretty absurd at times. https://t.co/g43JPDoYZX
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) December 1, 2022
However, things may be looking up in the future for crypto & NFT platforms looking to create apps available on Apple. In late 2022, the tech company announced that they will be making a major change for EU-based users.
Incoming EU laws will soon require that Apple allow third-party apps on its devices, meaning that crypto & NFT apps will no longer need to comply with the App Store’s 30% cut requirement.
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