Cryptocurrency exchange, Coinmama has become the first crypto exchange to have been authorized to integrate with ApplePay,
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Cryptocurrency exchanges have indeed integrated ApplePay before, but they did not receive official permission from Apple.
The addition of Apple Pay onto Coinmama’s platform is the latest of a number of fiat payment options that are currently available on the exchange, including Visa, Mastercard, SEPA, and others.
Apple Has Been Eyeing the Crypto Space
While the number of cryptocurrency-related platforms that have integrated Apple Pay has continued to grow, Apple’s expressed interest in the cryptocurrency space has been rather subdued.
Still, just over one year ago, the company made it clear that it has its eye on the crypto space.
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Specifically, Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay, told CNN‘s Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans at a private event in San Francisco that “we’re watching cryptocurrency. We think it’s interesting. We think it has interesting long-term potential.”
Several months prior to Bailey’s comments, Apple launched ‘CryptoKit’ for iOS 13, which would allow developers to easily create hashes for digital signatures, as well as public and private keys that could be stored in Apple’s Secure Enclave. The Secure Enclave is a piece of hardware in Apple devices that stores pieces of sensitive, encrypted information.
At the time that the CryptoKit was launched, a number of commentators believed that the company was paving the way toward creating hardware wallet capabilities for cryptocurrency storage.
However, Ouriel Ohayon, co-founder of ZenGo, told CoinDesk at the time of CryptoKit’s launch that “for now [CryptoKit] is pretty much useless for cryptocurrencies because, one, it does not use the relevant elliptic curves for blockchains, and two, there is no access to the secure enclave to export and migrate private keys if you need to.”
However, Ohayon said that he does “anticipate [Apple] to go that route a few years from now,” a move that he believes “will make the industry a lot better.”
Finance Magnates reached out to Sagi Bakshi and to Apple Pay for additional commentary on this story and had not heard back at press time. Comments will be added as they are received.
