Apple Faces Lawsuit Over Blocking Crypto Peer-to-Peer Payments

The world’s biggest company by market cap, Apple Inc., is being sued in a class action lawsuit for blocking crypto payments on iOS devices and payment apps. The suit, filed on November 17th in California’s District Court, accuses Apple of

In simple terms, the action alleges that Apple has behaved in a manner intended to curb competition. This has been achieved by forcing alternative payment gateways (think PayPal and Cash App) to remove crypto services from their products, or else be disallowed from participating within the iOS ecosystem. When we consider about 20% of all smartphone users own an Apple product, this is a significant market that crypto remains inaccessible to.

Excessive Fees Born From iOS Restrictions  

The key to the plaintiffs’ argument is that Apple’s “anti-competitive conduct” resulted in exorbitant fees being charged due to the inability to use crypto in P2P payments. Not only is decentralised currency typically cheaper to send (especially internationally), Apple’s actions mean that several crypto-focussed payment gateways have simply been barred from entering the market. Therefore the pre-existing products can charge more expensive fees without fear of competition forcing lower prices.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has been in hot water over non-competitive conduct around payment solutions. The multinational giants were targeted in an April suit from the United States Court of Appeals, which ruled that Apple acted in violation of competition laws by circumnavigating non-Apple partnered payment products. 

It’s unclear whether the lawsuit will be successful, but if so, it will be a major coup for crypto-loving consumers and other blockchain-based payment apps. A victory will suddenly provide these companies access to a market comprising over 1.4 billion people.