Apple’s Move Into Crypto ‘Could Make Sense’ – Analyst

Given where American tech giant Apple strategically is focused, a move into crypto could make sense given its sights on further monetizing its consumers over the coming years, Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told CNN Business.

“This would be a major shot in the arm for crypto if Apple headed down this path,” he added.

The analyst was reacting to remarks by Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay, who told CNN that they think cryptocurrency “is interesting” and “it has interesting long-term potential.”

“We’re watching cryptocurrency,” Bailey said without elaborating.

In August, Apple launched its first credit card, the Apple Card. It is built into the iPhone’s Apple Wallet app, but there is an option to get a laser-etched titanium card too.

When the company announced its plans to launch the card in March, some reacted that it is “a huge step towards increasing mobile payments—a perfect entry point for cryptocurrency adoption.”

Meanwhile, in June, news broke that Apple is set to announce CryptoKit, a framework for cryptographic functions that allows developers to perform common cryptographic tasks like hashing, key generation, and encryption in the forthcoming iOS 13 apps. Such functionality will enable Apple users to store and keep their private keys in iOS devices like iPhone.

However, while Apple is “watching cryptocurrency,” one of their biggest competitors, South Korean giant Samsung is making multiple moves into crypto and blockchain. According to the most recent report today, Samsung has partnered with the Klaytn blockchain platform in order to make its Galaxy Note 10 phablet more crypto friendly.

In either case, some industry players claim that Apple “absolutely must respond in some way” to the Facebook‘s Libra project.

“There is no choice now: the gauntlet has been thrown. They absolutely cannot allow Facebook to control reinvented money. So you can bet they are quickly considering their response,” cryptocurrency author Mark Jeffrey recently told Cryptonews.com.