Apple Abruptly Orders #Coinbase Wallet to Remove Crypto Collectible
It seems iPhone users won't have access to the crypto collectible craze anytime soon.
The news comes after forthcoming video game War Riders was featured on the Coinbase Wallet iOS app and then quickly withdrawn. In War Riders, players drive around an apocalyptic wasteland, building up armies of vehicles – vehicles represented by non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, on a blockchain. According to screenshots obtained by CoinDesk, a Coinbase staffer told Cartified, the company behind the game, via Discord: "Quick heads up – we will be removing from the iOS version as we're not able to highlight dapps that facilitate purchase of digital goods." The employee explained that War Riders was the only app listed within the wallet that sells NFTs. Notably, CryptoKitties, the famous decentralized application (dapp) for buying and breeding digital cats, isn't even featured. Although War Riders remains listed on the Android version of the Coinbase Wallet app. Stepping back, Apple has long had a complicated relationship with crypto in its app store. Coinbase was itself removed for a time early on (but that was a long time back). Plus an early game that allowed users to earn bitcoin for playing was also removed.
Viktor Radchenko, CEO of Trust Wallet, tweeted about the same problem in June.
"Experience with Apple is just terrible," he told CoinDesk via Telegram. "No communication from there on how to work with NFT's or even with cryptocurrencies." Yet, within Apple's app store review guidelines, there's no specific language forbidding NFTs precisely. Radchenko said Apple has indicated they are forbidden under its "In-App Purchase" rules.
