The increasing popularity of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies has encouraged most of the world’s tech companies, to research the market and work on innovative crypto projects. Apple is the newest company to join the race, following its recent announcement of the CryptoKit framework.
Understanding CryptoKit Functionalities
To put things better into perspective, CryptoKit represents a new framework that will be offered as part of iOS 13, which allows developers to leverage Apple devices in order to efficiently and securely carry out cryptographic operations. Some of these operations include key generation, hashing, and encryption. Additionally, CryptoKit can be used to compare and compute cryptographically secure digests, or to use public key cryptography for the creation and evaluation of digital signatures.
Apple is taking careful steps to ensure security. As such, developers can work with keys that are stored in their device’s memory, or with private keys that are both stored and managed by Apple’s Secure Enclave (a security feature offered on devices boasting the A7 and newer Apple CPUs). Message authentication and encryption are also possible now, granted that CryptoKit allows the generation of symmetric keys.
Thanks to this suite of tools, developers can now create crypto and blockchain-based apps for the iPhone. However, the use cases aren’t limited to the cryptocurrency market. According to Apple’s press release, “CryptoKit frees your app from managing raw pointers, and automatically handles tasks that make your app more secure, like overwriting sensitive data during memory deallocation.”
The launch of the CryptoKit led to the appearance of numerous rumors concerning Apple’s involvement in the cryptocurrency market. For instance, the chip functionalities alongside the features boasted by the CryptoKit can facilitate the release of a fully-fledged hardware wallet on all supporting iPhone devices. It’s not yet clear whether Apple plans to launch a native app for this purpose, or whether it will give way to developers.
The iOS 13 beta showcased at Apple’s WWDC conference also led to several leaks, pointing out that Apple will include four bitcoin symbols within its software font. Despite its 1,000 new icons, iOS 13 seems to only include the bitcoin logo, since no other cryptocurrency symbols were spotted.
Is Apple Pay Integrating Bitcoin Payments?
Apple’s new involvement in the crypto market, led to the appearance of several other rumors. As such, some believe that Apple Pay may soon integrate crypto assets, and allow bitcoin-based payments. There is, of course, no proof to verify this rumor, but it’s certainly not impossible. The same rumor is equally valid in the case of Samsung, which has also included crypto functionalities within its flagship Galaxy S10 device. So far, no confirmation on a Samsung Pay crypto integration has been given by the South Korean giant.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, it is always a pleasure to see important tech companies getting involved with the blockchain and crypto market. Each software integration paves to way for worldwide mass-adoption of digital currencies and blockchain technology.
Featured image via BigStock.