Coinbase says Apple has blocked its latest app update over NFT gas fees
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(Kitco News) – First it was Elon Musk who took issue with Apple’s App Store policy, and now Coinbase, the top cryptocurrency exchange in the US, has claimed that the tech company has blocked certain features on its Coinbase wallet. .
“You may have noticed that you cannot send NFTs [nonfungible tokens] on Coinbase Wallet iOS anymore. This is because Apple blocked our latest app release until we disabled the feature,” the exchange said on Twitter thread Posted Thursday.
The 30% fee that Apple takes on all transactions made through apps listed in the App Store has long been a point of contention for many app makers. Now, the company appears to be upping its efforts to increase revenue by claiming that the gas fees required to send NFTs must be paid through their In-App Purchase system, which will allow it to collect 30% of the gas fee. .
“For anyone who understands how NFTs and blockchains work, this is clearly not possible. Apple’s proprietary In-App Purchase system doesn’t support crypto, so we couldn’t comply even if we tried,” Coinbase said. “This is similar to Apple tries to take a cut of fees for every email sent over open Internet protocols.”
As it stands, iOS-based Coinbase Wallet users will not be able to transfer their NFTs and will be required to re-establish that wallet on another device that allows NFT transactions.
“The biggest impact from this policy change is on iPhone users who own NFTs – if you have an NFT in a wallet on an iPhone, Apple has just made it much more difficult to transfer that NFT to other wallets, or give it to friends or family “Coinbase tweeted.
The exchange went on to claim that “Apple introduced new policies to protect their profits at the expense of consumer investment in NFTs and developer innovation across the crypto ecosystem.”
It ended the thread saying “We hope this is an oversight on Apple’s behalf and a turning point for further conversations with the ecosystem.”
Apple has long had a tumultuous relationship with cryptocurrency applications, as their ability to facilitate payments outside of the app itself – by making on-chain transactions – has led Apple to remove many popular crypto apps.
In October, the tech giant updated its App Store rules, saying apps can facilitate “transactions or transfers of cryptocurrency on an approved exchange” but that “Apps cannot use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality” like cryptocurrencies or cryptocurrency wallets.
The new guidelines also stated that apps can use in-app purchases to sell NFTs and sell services related to them, such as minting, listing and transferring these tokens, as long as the apps “do not include buttons, external links or other calls to action which leads customers to purchase mechanisms other than in-app purchases.”
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