Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Inc., has stated that he doesn’t believe that companies should be attempting to build their power by establishing their own currencies. Cook’s words were originally published in Les Echos, a daily french financial publication, on Thursday of this week.
Cook’s sentiments around the entrance of the corporate world into currency creation came in response to a question over whether Apple would follow in the footsteps of Facebook and attempt to create its own cryptocurrency.
“No,” he said, simply. “I really think that a currency should stay in the hands of countries. I’m not comfortable with the idea of a private group setting up a competing currency. A private company shouldn’t be looking to gain power this way.”
Indeed, Cook’s reasons behind not wanting to create some sort of an “AppleCoin” appear to be ethical rather than financial.
“Currency, like defense, needs to stay in the hands of countries, that’s the heart of their mission,” Cook continued. “We elect our representatives to assume their governmental responsibilities. Companies aren’t elected and should not be going in this direction.”
Apple may not be diametrically opposed to crypto
However, Apple may not be completely opposed to interacting with the cryptocurrency industry in some way. Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple, told CNN during a private event in San Francisco in early September that the company is “watching cryptocurrency,” and that “we think it’s interesting. We think it has interesting long-term potential.”
Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.Com, speculated in an interview with Finance Magnates earlier this week that Apple may eventually replicate Samsung’s decision to integrate cryptocurrency wallets into smartphones.
Several companies have cold feet when it comes to joining Facebook’s Libra currency bid
Cook’s statement that companies should not be involved in the creation of Cryptocurrencies coincides with reports that several Payments companies are thinking of withdrawing from Facebook’s Libra project. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that PayPal, Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are concerned that their involvement with the project may damage their relationships with regulators who oppose Libra.
However, David Marcus, who heads Calibra (the entity that Facebook created to offer financial services for the Libra network), said on Twitter that he expects companies to reconsider their involvement with the project as time marches on.
“Change of this magnitude is hard and requires courage + it will be a long journey,” he wrote. “For Libra to succeed it needs committed members, and while I have no knowledge of specific organizations plans to not step up, commitment to the mission is more important than anything else.”
2) change of this magnitude is hard and requires courage + it will be a long journey. For Libra to succeed it needs committed members, and while I have no knowledge of specific organizations plans to not step up, commitment to the mission is more important than anything else;
— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) October 1, 2019
In early July, Facebook said in its quarterly report that it could not guarantee that Libra “will be made available in a timely manner, or at all.”
