The team at Coinbase Wallet has published a Twitter thread explaining why the sending of NFTs is disabled on their iOS application. They claim that NFTs can longer be sent using the app as Apple blocked its latest release until the feature was removed.

Source: @CoinbaseWallet on Twitter

Apple Wants to Collect 30% of Gas Fees When Sending NFTs

The team at Coinbase Wallet explained that the sending of NFTs was disabled on the iOS app due to Apple claiming that they needed 30% of gas fees spent when sending digital collectables.

‘Apple’s claim is that the gas fees required to send NFTs need to be paid through their In-App Purchase system so that they can collect 30% of the gas fee,‘ they tweeted.

In addition, the Coinbase Wallet team pointed out that such a collection of gas fees through the Apple in-app purchase system was not possible based on how NFTs and blockchains are designed. They compared Apple’s demands to being similar to requesting ‘a cut of fees for every email that gets sent over open Internet protocols.’

Apple Wants to Protect Their Profits at the Expense of Consumer Investment in NFTs

In a follow-up Tweet, the Coinbase Wallet team lamented that Apple’s policy change had put an unnecessary roadblock for iPhone users who own and hold NFTs on their devices. Apple’s 30% in-app cut complicates things as the NFTs cannot be easily transferred to other wallets or gifted to friends or family.

‘Simply put, Apple has introduced new policies to protect their profits at the expense of consumer investment in NFTs and developer innovation across the crypto ecosystem,’ they concluded.

Elon Musk Had Pointed Out Apple’s Secret 30% Tax

Coinbase Wallet pointing out Apple’s mandatory 30% cut on in-app purchases comes less than two days after Elon Musk highlighted the same fact on Twitter. The Tesla CEO called the Apple requirement ‘a secret 30% tax’ as seen in the screenshot below.

Source: @elonmusk on Twitter

Mr Musk responded to a similar Tweet by the team at Watcher Guru, who highlighted that Apple took ‘a 30% tax from app developers who make over $1 million through the ‌App Store‌ on an annual basis.’