Apple’s Cryptocurrency Announced at WWDC
The subtle approach Apple is using to become a bank
I. Setting the Stage
At WWDC a few weeks ago, there was a short segment where apple introduced a new feature for iMessage. In iOS 11, they now allow people send cash to one another. It’s the same thing as Venmo. They don’t charge you a fee. It’s just, “Hey Bobby, here’s $20 that I owe you from dinner last night” and it gets transferred to you.
It looks like this:
But that isn’t the point for Apple. That’s just the Trojan Horse they’re using for something far more subtle and far more valuable.
II. Apple’s Latest Trojan Horse
It has to do with the Apple Wallet where you store your bank card, credit card, Starbucks card, and even airline boarding passes. Now there’s a new card that’s going to show up in your wallet. It’s called Apple PayCash and that’s what holds on to and stores the money your friend just sent you.
It looks like this:
This Apple Pay Cash Card in your digital wallet is what stores value. Some people thought of it like a gift card because you can use this money to pay through ApplePay in a cab, at the grocery store, or on the web.
But that’s not the right way to think about it.
This is the beginning of Apple’s cryptocurrency.
Think about it. Transferring money from one person to another. A digital currency that stores value. A wallet. This is how the cryptocurrency community talks. It’s how people describe Bitcoin and Ether.
And as you think about investing in either of those currencies whether for your personal fund or your hedge fund, you have to consider the breadth of their install base (1 billion active devices) and the ecosystem that already exists around it (Music, Hardware, Services, AR, future Car), it’s a big deal.
III. Your Next Investment
Instead of investing in something that’s decentralized, you might want to have some centralization or backing of a giant company you already know and trust to store your money.
Because we all know what happened with the Coinbase hacker attacks. Part of the problem is the wallets themselves. You can’t trust them like you trust a bank.
Chase Bank and Bank of America don’t give you much beyond the 1% interest that doesn’t even beat inflation. With AppleCash you would gain the benefit of an increasing user base, Apple’s stock price, and continued R&D, the cash and real asssets on their balance sheet, etc etc.
So for me, the question isn’t whether or not to invest in Ethereum or Bitcoin, it’s the choice between China’s upcoming digital currency or Apple’s. Which means you could just go invest in $AAPL today and get the gain when iOS 11 comes out in the fall.
They should have just called it Apple CashMoney.
We’d love to know what you think about this. We haven’t heard anyone else talking about it, but the tea leaves for us seem about as obvious as they can be.
