Apple’s brand suffered earlier this year when the company decided to ban the Blockchain Bitcoin app. In fact, it unleashed such a firestorm that diehard technologists and Bitcoin fans took to YouTube to post videos of themselves destroying their iPhones in a number of creative ways, including with a sniper rifle and a machete. In the event you haven’t seen these before, you can watch some of them here.
Moving along to the topic at hand, many people are closely scrutinizing Apple’s policies today due to the kickoff of the company’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference. For folks within the Bitcoin community, focus has been on a small recent entry within the section on “Purchasing and Currencies” within the document: App Store Review Guidelines. See below:
As you can see, 11.17 is the latest addition to that particular section, which is leading many to think this is a change of policy. Of course, we don’t know what “approved” virtual currencies are, but if Apple didn’t approve Bitcoin it would be the biggest joke of all-time and I don’t think the company would be so stupid.
If myself and others are reading this correctly, it is hard to overestimate the importance of this for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Just as the complexity of buying Bitcoin held it back in the early years until companies such as Coinbase came along, so too has Apple’s ban prevented BTC from growing even larger than it has thus far.
This appears to be the second piece of very positive news in the last month or so. I described the last one in my post: BitPay Purportedly Raises $30 Million from Investors Including Richard Branson in Largest Bitcoin Investment Round Ever.
The Bitcoin price move is right on schedule. As I have noted since earlier this year, I expected it to start move higher again beginning this summer. If this indeed heralds the start of a proliferation of Bitcoin apps on the iPhone, buckle up, it’s going to get crazy.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G
Follow me on Twitter.
At first glance this seems like a way to endorse Bitcoin with some plausible deniability. I think it’s premature to celebrate right now… that’s just my Spidey sense. Maybe it’s just that I don’t trust Apple to do the right thing.
yeah, cause its not like bitcoin can be hacked or manipulated or your account frozen cause an exchange went T/U……
previously you conveyed your sentiment that mass spying devices sold by apple are bad and apple is also bad because they hate bitcoin, and now you are doing a 180 and apple are good because they are approving of it.
what exactly changed here other than your opinion mike?
Or if nothing ‘changed’ about apple, how is it that you can have it both ways where your judgement of apple’s behavior regarding 99.99% of what apple is as a revenue stream and platform can comport with with .01% of what apple is in so far as its interaction with the bitcoin blockchain service community makes a difference to what ‘apple’ can be considered to be.
after all, you can always access bitcoin through your browser on any apple device no?
mike, you have some explaining to do in order to make yourself appear consistent.