Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, has recently announced that he is a crypto investor and owns Bitcoin. Apple is currently the world’s second biggest company with a market cap of over $2.5 trillion. Naturally this has got many wondering if Apple has any plans to invest in crypto.
Not Putting All His Eggs in the One Basket
Cook has revealed that he has been interested in cryptocurrencies for a while and has been doing his research. He follows the old financial adage of not “putting all your eggs in the one basket.” So, crypto is part of having a diverse portfolio for Cook. He hasn’t revealed to date how much he has or what cryptocurrencies he owns, just that he owns them.
Will Apple Invest in Crypto?
Cook has said that Apple doesn’t have any plans to invest in crypto as a company because he believes Apple shareholders don’t buy Apple stocks to get exposure to Bitcoin. He believes they would buy Bitcoin directly. However he has said that Apple is looking at other avenues to integrate crypto. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise as other big brands like Tesla, Facebook and Dell are exploring crypto to see how they can reap the benefits.
Apple Pay and Crypto
Apple Pay which has close to 400 million users might integrate crypto, hinted Cook. But there are no definite plans in place as of yet to do so. It’s just discussions on the table and further research. Back in September 2019, Jennifer Bailey, the Vice President of Apple Pay had said that Apple was exploring the crypto space and did see cryptocurrencies as assets with “interesting long term potential”, according to a CNN report.
Creating an Apple Blockchain Native Phone
The tech giant Samsung has previously attempted to devise a blockchain native phone but encountered a lot of problems. But, now blockchain users can trade and manage virtual assets from third-party wallets on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. A blockchain native phone is both a hardware wallet and also a potential Metamask (cryptocurrency wallet hot wallet often used in DeFi). Apple could come up with one. However it’s not clear yet whether it can compete with crypto native startups which have wallets already. Perhaps they could do something with NFTs (non fungible tokens) but only time will tell.
Trillion Dollar Brands: the Metaverse and Blockchain
Trillion dollar brands like Google, Facebook, Tesla, Microsoft and others have all expressed an interest in the metaverse and in Bitcoin. Many are exploring their own blockchain. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years with these huge titans of industry. Some titans will fall, some will compete on the blockchain and no doubt some startups will continue to rise and make their mark in both the metaverse and on the blockchain.
A Quick Note on Microsoft and Blockchain
Microsoft, the huge tech giant who got overshadowed in the 90s from Apple, has now made a huge comeback which has been for the most part unnoticed. There are far too many giants in the landscape like Google and Amazon. So its comeback has been quiet. Some people don’t realise that Microsoft was an early adopter of blockchain and is currently launching its new blockchain-based secure ledger – Azure Confidential Ledger service.
