Damus removes his bitcoin tip button under pressure from Apple

Damus, a decentralized social network like Twitter built on Nostr, received a statement yesterday warning that the app could be removed from Apple’s App Store. “Damus will be removed from the app store in 14 days,” explained the social network team, which a few hours later reported that they would remove an important function from their platform.

According to the explanation From Damus, “Apple says zaps are not allowed on its platform because they ‘might’ be used by content creators to sell digital content.” Zaps are bitcoin tips or tips that are transmitted through the Lightning network and are part of the Nostr economic system. Posts that people share on Damus include a button that allows users to receive zaps.

Shortly after the information spread that Damus could be removed from the App Store, Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter and one of the investors who financed the Damus project, express his dismay: “This seems to be a misunderstanding on Apple’s part about how this feature works and what it is for.” By way of explanation, he turned to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: “It is a fundamental part of the future of the Internet. It has the ability to attract people from all over the world into the economy without the traditional gatekeepers.”

Dorsey is referring in part to the essence of the Nostr project, a protocol he advocates that is inspired by the architecture of Bitcoin. This way, the protocol allows to create decentralized social networks, resistant to censorship, since it is the network of users that is in charge of storing and transmitting the contents, which in turn are generated and protected with private keys. It can be affirmed that no one has the power to delete or modify a publication.

Jack Dorsey’s public petition appears to have had an effect, for soon Damus’s team reported: “Apple contacted us and scheduled a call to discuss the role of zaps in more detail.”

But this seems not to have been enough because today Damus gave the following news:

Damus has to remove the zap button on posts because this is considered ‘selling digital content’. Zaps are only allowed on profiles. This pretty much cripples Damus, but at least you can zap.

Damus, decentralized social network based on Nostr.

Zaps on posts or selling digital content

Before long voices were raised. Most people don’t share Apple’s point of view. Among these, Jack Dorsey, who now runs a company focused on payments development called Block, alleges that “Tipping on posts is not selling digital content. It’s a form of feedback.”. And, in addition, he challenged Tim Cook again:

Why limit people who send bitcoins to each other? This is our only chance to build a truly global payment protocol for the Internet (which would benefit your business immensely).

Jack Dorsey, founder and CEO of Block.

Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike and founder of Zap, warned: “This is one of the main reasons why bitcoin payments are not integrated into Tweets, DMs, Spaces, etc.” And he continued: “Apple should encourage Internet-native payments, not prevent them. Bitcoin is a great opportunity for Apple. Has no sense”.

For his part, Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epig Games was more blunt:

Apple is on top of money transfer and financing apps like Damus, Patreon, Venmo, maybe PayPal and Stripe. If digital goods can somehow be involved in the transfer, now they want 30%. If Apple can tax this, they can tax digital banking, payroll and anything else.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games

By the way, Damus insists in that they don’t provide features to sell digital goods, “it simply has a tip button to facilitate P2P transactions, like Venmo or Cashapp.”

In the current context, where battles are being waged against censorship at every corner and in favor of an economy without the impositions of the entities that maintain established power, it seems that the initial reflection of the Damus team charges more:

This could be a watershed moment: if people can’t make free peer-to-peer transactions on your platform, this has huge implications for the entire ecosystem of Lightning-integrated apps.

Damus, decentralized social network based on Nostr.