Apple is one of the most successful companies in the history of Silicon Valley, revolutionizing and dominating market after market from graphic design to music and mobile phones. It is also one of the most powerful companies in the world right now, expected to be the first to reach a trillion dollar market cap. As such, one might expect Apple Pay Cash to obliterate the competition, but bitcoin can change that.
Also read: TD Ameritrade, Ally Invest to Offer Exchange Traded Bitcoin Futures
Apple Pay Cash
This Tuesday Apple Pay Cash and person to person payments were made available to Apple customers in the US. The company promotes this service as the simplest way to make person to person payments on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
Users can now get paid right within iMessage, or by just asking Siri to pay someone. They can use the debit and credit cards they already have added to Apple Pay, so there’s no need to install an app or create another account.
While most analysts see this as a response from Apple to Venmo or Square’s Cash App, it is hard to believe Apple hasn’t also noticed the millions of bitcoin wallet apps downloaded recently. It’s easy for some of us to forget these days that the cryptocurrency wasn’t created just to store value but also to act as a P2P cash system.
Mobile Money Apps Turn to Bitcoin
While Apple is promoting its propitiatory fiat-only service, more and more mobile app developers are giving-in to user demands and adding support for bitcoin. Just two notable recent examples are Square’s Cash App and mobile banking app Revolut.
On Tuesday Square said it was rolling out its buy and sell bitcoin feature to a substantial amount of new users. And Today Revolut announced that customers will now be able to use the app for instant purchases of cryptocurrencies via Bitstamp or transfer their bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum to other Revolut customers instantly and for free.
“This is something that our customers have wanted for a long time,” said Lewis Tuff, Revolut’s Chief Platform Engineer. “We think Bitstamp is the perfect partner as we provide Revolut customers with the ability to convert fiat money to cryptocurrencies, making the process much faster and much more accessible.”
Should we expect Apple Pay Cash to add bitcoin support eventually or is Apple planning its own iCoin? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Apple.
Do you like to research and read about Bitcoin technology? Check out Bitcoin.com’s Wiki page for an in-depth look at Bitcoin’s innovative technology and interesting history.