Crypto industry is facing a major roadblock due to apple’s 30% in-app purchase tax. metamask co-founder and ex-apple employee dan finlay is in favor of ditching apple’s app store altogether and coinbase’s wallet announced thursday that its users would no longer be able to trade or transfer nfts through its ios app due to apple not being integrated with blockchains like ethereum. epic games ceo tim sweeney and polygon studios ceo ryan wyatt have also expressed their disdain toward the 30% in-app purchase tax.
Issue first came to light on thursday when coinbase’s wallet announced that its users would no longer be able to trade or transfer nfts through its ios app. instagram also announced that it would be implementing apple’s 30% tax onto every nft sale. apple’s guidelines state that apps are allowed to “use in-app purchase to sell and sell services related to non-fungible tokens (nfts),” but those will all be subject to the 30% tax.
30% in-app purchase tax has been called “an abuse of monopoly” due to the fact that digital art (when traded as an nft) is taxed, while physical art is not. furthermore, crypto companies like opensea or coinbase are not allowed to sell digital goods without being subject to the tax, while amazon is allowed to sell physical goods in their applications without being subject to the tax. it’s unclear what this would mean for current users of the metamask ios app, as they have not responded to decrypt’s requests for comment.
https://decrypt.co/116337/metamask-co-founder-dump-apple-ios-tax
