Are Amazon and Apple Testing Blockchain Technology?
Apple, Starbucks, and Amazon could be the next companies to get into blockchain.
That’s according to Jeff Tennery, CEO at online hiring platform Moonlighting, which is getting ready for its own initial coin offering. He says that the tech giants’ large marketplaces make it easier to experiment with the technology.
“If Apple Pay is as important to Apple as they’ve said it is, why wouldn’t they do some sort of cryptocurrency?” he said. “The rules are better established for bigger companies.”
Moonlighting’s ICO is coming in early 2018 on the Ethereum platform, the second-biggest digital currency. With a market cap of about $72 billion dollars, it lags only Bitcoin, which stands at over $300 billion.
Bitcoin may be the more recognizable name, but some industry insiders express concerns that it doesn’t have the same capabilities as the alternatives.
“Bitcoin really wasn’t designed or architected to support third-party currency, and Ether really supports that,” he said. “That’s why it’s growing so quickly.”
For the full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/mining-for-moonbit).
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. in the current fiscal quarter will be sourced from India, while iPads and other devices will come from Vietnam as the company works to avoid the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on its business. Apple’s earnings for the first three months of the year topped Wall Street’s expectations thanks to high demand for its iPhones, and the company said tariffs had a limited effect on the fiscal second quarter’s results. Cook added that for the current quarter, assuming things don’t change, Apple expects to see $900 million added to its costs as a result of the tariffs.