Apple Is ‘watching Crypto’ But There Was No Mention At iPhone 11 Event

By Danny Scott, CEO of CoinCorner

Apple revealed their latest line of products, unveiling the new iPhone 11 at their annual Apple event yesterday, however there was no mention of their plans for cryptocurrency, which they recently revealed they were “watching”.

The news that cryptocurrency was on their radar came as no surprise to us – we’ve said on many occasions that we expect to see more FAANG companies exploring cryptocurrency, especially following announcements from the likes of Facebook (Libra) earlier this year – but although Jennifer Bailey, VP of Apple Pay positively described cryptocurrency as having “interesting long-term potential”, we expect Apple to remain somewhat sceptical, bearing in mind that they don’t allow customers to use their credit card for the purchase of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies at the moment.

It’s fair to assume that Apple are most likely exploring cryptocurrencies behind the scenes already – what company isn’t? – so it will come as no surprise if they announce “Apple Coin” in the near future. We certainly don’t expect to see them embracing Bitcoin anytime soon – given the decentralised nature of Bitcoin (one of its fundamental features), we fail to see how it would fit into the notoriously centralised ecosystem of Apple products and services.

If Apple does decide to go down the route of creating their own cryptocurrency, they’ll quickly realise that as long as there is a central authority with control, there is no consumer demand or desire for it. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: it’s a waste of time and resources for these big companies to explore cryptocurrencies if all it means is that they are going to try and reinvent the (Bitcoin) wheel.

Apple may very well just be the next big name trying to use cryptocurrency as a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.