As part of its ongoing developer conference this week, Apple has added a section to its developer guidelines regarding apps for virtual currencies, including, possibly, Bitcoin.
If you look for Bitcoin apps in the App Store right now, you’ll notice most of them are tickers that monitor Bitcoin’s exchange rate. But if you use Bitcoin yourself and want to move some of that money around, there aren’t any apps that’ll let you do that just yet.
That may all change soon, provided that transmitting virtual currencies is allowed in your neck of the woods.
Apple’s new guideline reads as follows:
Apps may facilitate transmission of approved virtual currencies provided that they do so in compliance with all state and federal laws for the territories in which the app functions.
TechCrunch co-editor Matthew Panzarino posits that Apple will probably take a cautious approach with such apps:
Does this mean Apple will start accepting bitcoin apps that transmit currency in the App Store immediately? Probably not, unless there have been rulings declaring the currency “legal” in a given region. If there is no ruling, I wouldn’t count on it.
And note that Apple doesn’t explicitly mention Bitcoin by name — just “virtual currencies,” though Bitcoin is currently the highest-profile of the virtual currencies out there.
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