Coinbase Wallet disables NFT transfers as Apple forces 30% fees compliance

• Coinbase Wallet announced that collecting fees through the In-App Purchase system is impossible due to technological limitations.
• Earlier this week, Coinbase Wallet also terminated support for XRP, ETC, BCH and XLM, citing low usage.
• Monthly NFT sales volume has declined to an 18-month low of $414.8 million.

Coinbase Wallet took a dig at the biggest tech company in the world, Apple, after it was forced to deactivate some of its features. The wallet service of the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world could not follow certain policies by Apple, resulting in Coinbase's predicament.

Coinbase Wallet bulldozed by Apple

Coinbase's wallet service tweeted on Thursday that it is being coerced to disable its NFT transfer feature on iOS. Coinbase Wallet explained that Apple blocked the application's latest release until the transfer feature was disabled.

The reason behind this is Apple's demand for 30% of the gas fees, as per its In-App Purchase system. This taxation has been applicable across all applications on the App Store since its inception, which remained unnoticed for a while, only to be highlighted recently by the likes of Elon Musk as well.

When it comes to NFTs, transfers over the blockchain networks necessitate a fee to process the transfers. However, this fee is not centralized or fixed, which is why it is impossible for Apple to receive 30% on each transfer. Coinbase Wallet added to the same, stating,

"For anyone who understands how NFTs and blockchains work, this is clearly not possible. Apple's proprietary In-App Purchase system does not support crypto so we couldn't comply even if we tried."

This is the second blow received by Coinbase Wallet users within a week. On November 28, the self-custody wallet announced the decision to pull the support for tokens - Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Stellar (XLM). Citing a lack of demand, these assets were removed by the platform.

NFTs continue to slide

While the NFT transfer service on Coinbase Wallet is disabled for now, it may not face much damage. This is because the demand for NFTs has been sliding with every passing month since January this year. At the beginning of 2022, the total sales volume generated by NFTs amounted to $17.1 billion. 

NFT monthly sales volume 

However, the month of November only noted NFTs' sales generating $414 million in volume, which is the lowest registered figure since June 2021. Moreover, there seems to be no rise in demand for NFTs either, making it possible for December to record even lower sales volume.

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