Bitcoin-friendly social media app Damus has scored a partial win in its two-week battle to stay on tech large Apple’s App Retailer.
Damus, a decentralized social media platform operating on the Nostr protocol, was warned by Apple on June 13 that it confronted expulsion from the App Retailer if it continued in facilitating the acceptance of “zaps,” suggestions utilizing Bitcoin’s Lightning Community, on content material posts—circumventing Apple Pay.
So as to adjust to Apple’s strict in-app buy tips, Damus has been pressured to make some concessions. Whereas Damus customers can nonetheless interact in zap transactions on the profile stage, permitting for peer-to-peer transfers, the newest model of the app will now not assist zaps on posts, as Apple thought-about this characteristic akin to promoting digital content material.
“We’re allowed to remain solely after forcing me to take away a core characteristic of the app,” Damus App founder William Casarin instructed Decrypt. He tweeted that he’ll proceed to construct Damus on iOS as a “vanilla nostr consumer.”
Decrypt has reached out to Apple for remark and can replace this story ought to they reply.
Apple vs Bitcoiners
Apple’s unique resolution to take away the Damus app from the AppStore sparked criticism from distinguished figures throughout the Bitcoin group, together with former Twitter CEO and Jack Dorsey, who invested $5 million in Damus protocol’s improvement. “Why doesn’t Apple Pay assist bitcoin @tim_cook?”, he tweeted earlier this week.
Members of the Bitcoin group argued that Apple’s stringent tips represent an impediment to the widespread adoption of Bitcoin-friendly purposes within the App Retailer. Apple maintains that every one apps are topic to the identical set of tips, with none particular therapy.
Casarin instructed Decrypt that his greatest concern is that different worth for worth (v4v) Bitcoin apps comparable to Fountain and Podcasting 2.0 are “in danger for elimination.”
“I don’t understand how Fountain is allowed in any respect contemplating their entire app is content material tipping with Bitcoin,” Casarin mentioned. “Now I’m again on however the app is lots worse than it was earlier than. We nonetheless have censorship resistant speech I suppose, hopefully Apple doesn’t ban that too.”
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