Apple vs. Epic Games Court Ruling Bullish For Bitcoin?

It is possible that a long-awaited ruling on the Apple versus Epic Games legal battle will have ‘bullish’ implications on Bitcoin and the crypto market. The two giants entered legal battle in August 2020 over the alleged violation of the developer agreement by Epic with its popular game Fortnite.

The ruling was a loss for the gaming company, Epic Games lost 9 out of the 10 counts, as former Amazon Studios Director, Matthew Ball said in a long read to his Twitter followers. However, Apple might be hit hardest as it now must allow developers to include alternative payments to its Apple Pay option. The court ruling stated:

(Apple has been) permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app.

With the current agreement, Apple takes around 30% of purchases made in the App Store and around 30% of in-game earnings. To keep the profits from this agreement, Apple purposely stopped developers to include their own payment options.

In addition to the already high fees collected by Apple, the lawsuit cost Epic Games already over $4 million in damages and compensation.

Lightning enter the game

In the crypto space, some people have already highlighted the potential for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to impact Apple’s app ecosystem. Bitcoin and a Lightning Network implementation could provide a much better deal for App developers.

Ran Neuner, the host for CNBC Crypto Trader shared to his followers Twitter:

This is HUGE for Crypto. Apple has dictated the payment mechanism for years ,now the door is open for new payment methods!! The market doesn’t realize this yet.https://t.co/qm1VacCDQw

— Ran Neuner (@cryptomanran) September 10, 2021

The court partially ruled Apple’s behavior as anti-competitive. With the process for either of the parties to appeal open, it is still possible to see changes to the initial decision, which are not equally beneficial to all, according to Ball:

“(…) we have a situation where, at minimum, alternative payments are a pain, with unclear and potentially no benefit, and to the extent benefits exist, they’re concentrated among the biggest developers, not the small guy.”

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