Blockchain.info back in the App Store heralds good news for Apple and Bitcoin
Apple and Bitcoin have had a tumultuous relationship in the past. In late 2013, Apple pulled the Coinbase and Coinjar apps from the App Store and in February 2014, Blockchain.info found its app also yanked. This apparent hostility to Bitcoin-related apps was taken by the community as hostility directed at Bitcoin and the community itself. It even led to a number of videos of people destroying their iPhones (sometimes by shooting holes in them) in order to win a Samsung Galaxy.
The freeze seems to be thawing now, however, when Apple changed its developer guidelines in June to allow apps that “facilitate transmission of approved virtual currencies.” Now that newfound acceptance has borne fruit and the Blockchain.info app has returned to the iOS App store.
“We rebuilt the wallet from the ground up adding security features like a pin screen, improving performance, and updating the user interface,” wrote Alyson Margaret, Blockchain.info Communications Manager, in a blog post on the matter. “We also changed the default sending fee to .0001 BTC; the same as our Android wallet.”
Blockchain CEO Nicolas Cary is hopeful this means that Apple is turning around on its earlier hostility to Bitcoin and it will lead to greater adoption.
“We’re very excited to continue investing in iOS again,” Cary said, “and working with Apple to reimagine how the world transacts.”
Blockchain.info an early Bitcoin service
Blockchain.info was founded in 2011 with the intent to display accurate and advanced information about the Bitcoin blockchain—the distributed ledger of every Bitcoin transaction ever made—but eventually expanded to add a web wallet. The Blockchain.info Apple app is an implementation of this web wallet.
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