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These Are the Six Crypto-Currencies Approved By Apple (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Softpedia: Anthony Di Iorio, founder of Jaxx, a crypto-currency wallet, claims that an Apple representative revealed to him the six crypto-currencies allowed on the App Store, during a private phone conversation... Di Iorio had this conversation with the Apple employee after the company removed his Jaxx iOS app from the store. The Apple employee told Di Iorio that they had to remove his app because it featured support for Dash, another blockchain technology, touted as an alternative to Bitcoin.
During the conversation, Di Iorio asked what crypto-currencies Apple approves of, so he'd know what to remove from Jaxx's iOS version and get his app back on the App Store. Di Iorio says that Apple is comfortable approving apps on its App Store that handle only six crypto-currencies: Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, the DAO and Ripple. Reaction to Apple's list of approved crypto-currencies wasn't positive, at least on Twitter. Most users criticized Apple's decision to limit the list to only six, which they considered might thwart the evolution of other, lesser-known crypto-currencies.
Vitalik Buterin, who helped create Ethereum with Di lorio, tweeted "For the record: despite being a beneficiary of this instance of (private) regulatory protectionism, I oppose it."
During the conversation, Di Iorio asked what crypto-currencies Apple approves of, so he'd know what to remove from Jaxx's iOS version and get his app back on the App Store. Di Iorio says that Apple is comfortable approving apps on its App Store that handle only six crypto-currencies: Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, the DAO and Ripple. Reaction to Apple's list of approved crypto-currencies wasn't positive, at least on Twitter. Most users criticized Apple's decision to limit the list to only six, which they considered might thwart the evolution of other, lesser-known crypto-currencies.
Vitalik Buterin, who helped create Ethereum with Di lorio, tweeted "For the record: despite being a beneficiary of this instance of (private) regulatory protectionism, I oppose it."
It reminds me more of this story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But the literature is full of men who have been given special information secretly from on high and then endeavor to bring it to the masses. In this case, the deity happened to be Apple.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Apple employees need to get high too.
I bought some illicit bulk legos (from a small shop on bricklink) this week and we did not have to pay paypal processing fees, it was awesome. Me and my three year old were getting high building a castle.
That's six ways to lose all your money when the exchange gets robbed.
People using the App Store to massively dodge taxes is still A-OK though. As long as the people involved are Tim Cook and friends.
I will concede that the major anonymouns coins: dash (formerly dark coin and the topic of this story), monero, and counterparty have shot up in price significantly over the past month, during a period where bitcoin has been mostly flat or fallen in value. I am not sure what is driving the increased price/market cap, but I assume the dark net is involved.
It may be the realization that bitcoin is not anonymous but there are newer alt-coins that have addressed that issue.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
It's basically just another reason to protest the walled garden model: the problem is not that support for these things has great value, the problem is that Apple is deciding what you can and can not do with your stuff.
Apple should either allow them all, because it's none of their business how you waste your money, or ban them all, because you are helpless and need to be protected from your own stupidity. This half-assed approach, where Apple gives you the opportunity to screw yourself but only in an Apple-approved way, is the worst option of all.
Apple should ban cryptocurrencies altogether. They're not used to purchase legitimate goods because nobody accepts them. The highly variable exchange rates virtually guarantee that nobody will want to accept them. They are, however, frequently used to purchase illicit goods and services through websites like the former Silk Road. Apple should do the right thing and ban cryptocurrencies altogether.
Yes, also ban guns, baseball bats and cars because they can be used for crimes too. Especially guns. They can kill people.
P.S Why do you want to increase street violence levels by making it harder for sites like Silk Road to operate?
> I am not sure what is driving the increased price/market cap,
That's pretty simple. Bitcoin has a hard cap on block size of 1 MB. This was originally put in many years ago by Satoshi Nakamoto to limit spam attacks that would DDOS Bitcoin nodes. By the middle of this year actual user transactions were pushing the 1 MB cap, and the developers of the "Core" version of Bitcoin have refused to raise it. There are various theories about *why* they refuse to raise it (stupidity, financial conflicts of interest, etc.), but for discussing the impact on other cryptocurrencies it doesn't matter. Only the existence of the limit matters.
In order to get into the limited space for new transactions, people have had to raise the transaction fee they offer. In turn, this has made alternate currencies cheaper to use, although Bitcoin still benefits from being the first mover and the network effect (more users, more apps and tools to use it). The alternate currencies are worth more now because traders predict a shift in usage if the cap on Bitcoin remains in place for long. At the same time, the majority of users are getting fed up with with a network limited to 14.4K dialup speeds (1 MB/10 minutes = 13,333 bits/second), so there are efforts to fork the Bitcoin software (it's open source) to something less restrictive. There still needs to be some kind of limit, because network nodes have to be able to relay and verify transactions in real time, but 1 MB/10 minutes isn't it.