Apple threatens to remove Web3 social network Damus from App Store if it doesn’t end Bitcoin tipping
The Web3 social network Damus has two weeks to remove Bitcoin tipping functionality from its app or it will be banished from the App Store, the company said in a Tuesday tweet.
Screenshots of a message sent to Damus by Apple show that the latter raised an objection over tips in the app called “zaps,” where users can send cryptocurrency directly to creators using the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Apple said in the message posted by Damus that the tips must use Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism, which takes a 30% cut of each transaction.
“Although tips or donations may be optional, if they are connected to or associated with receiving digital content, they must use in-app purchase…” the company wrote to Damus.
In a follow-up tweet Tuesday, Damus said Apple had reached out to schedule a call “to discuss the role of zaps in more detail.”
Damus will be removed from the app store in 14 days, apple says zaps are not allowed on their platform because they *could* be used by content creators to sell digital content. This is right before we’re about to give our talk at the oslo freedom forum on how decentralized social… pic.twitter.com/uAK1U0UBet
— Damus⚡️ (@damusapp) June 13, 2023
Several crypto advocates rushed to support Damus, including Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Block (formerly Square), who tagged Tim Cook in a tweet and asked the Apple CEO to reconsider the decision.
“This seems to be a misunderstanding by @apple of how this feature works and what it’s for. It’s a critical part of the future of the internet. It has the capacity to bring people around the world into the economy without the traditional gatekeepers,” Dorsey wrote in the tweet.
Apple did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Apple has been in a continuous battle with blockchain-based applications for pushing its 30% fee onto cryptocurrencies and NFTs. In October, Apple updated its iOS app rules and welcomed NFT-based apps to the App Store but also rejected calls to exempt non-fungible tokens from its fee.
In December, Coinbase said Apple was blocking its latest update to its digital wallet on iOS until the crypto exchange shared 30% of gas fees from NFT transfers or disabled the ability to send them. Coinbase caved, removing the ability for Coinbase Wallet users to send NFTs between each other.
Despite the conflict with Web3 companies, Apple seemed to compromise a bit in recent dealings. In April, the National Football League partnered with video game company Mythical Games to release NFL Rivals, a game on iOS that allows users to buy, collect, and trade NFTs like digital player cards.
At the time of release, Mythical Games CEO John Linden told Fortune that the game was reviewed and supported by Apple. “They’ve approved. They’ve been in discussion with us,” Linden said. “They’ve been playing the game, they’re definitely in this build.”
Sky Mavis, the parent company of Web3 game Axie Infinity, also worked with Apple to launch the mobile game Axie Infinity: Origins, which was released last month in Latin America and Asia on the App Store.
The game uses Axie Infinity’s Ethereum-based Ronin blockchain and allows players to use NFTs in the game, even if they were purchased from third-party exchanges, Decrypt reported. Still, several parts of the game’s functionality, including crafting recipes, must be done on the desktop or Android versions.
