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Apple disputes monopoly claims, cites ‘fierce competition’ in court

Apple’s letter to a federal judge previewed its slated dismissal motion to a U.S. antitrust suit, with the firm claiming prosecutors didn’t define where it has a monopoly.

Apple has claimed it isn’t a “monopolist” and “faces fierce competition” in the tech sector in a letter previewing its bid to toss a United States antitrust suit.

In a May 21 letter to New Jersey federal judge Julien Neals requesting a conference ahead of its dismissal motion, Apple’s lawyers refuted U.S. claims that it engaged in anticompetitive conduct by excluding third-party access to its platform and made design decisions that “‘lock in’ users to purchasing iPhones.”

The firm said its alleged anticompetitive conduct “involves Apple making unilateral decisions about the terms and conditions on which to permit third parties access to Apple’s proprietary platform.”

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Bitget Re-Launches UK Website, Expanding Access to Digital Assets for British Users

Jack Dorsey courts controversy by claiming ETH is a security

Since Binance and Coinbase were sued for offering unregistered securities, the longtime Bitcoin advocate has tweeted posts promoting a focus on BTC development.

Long-time Bitcoin (BTC) advocate Jack Dorsey has found himself in a Twitter war with several crypto industry pundits after he responded with “yes” to a question asking if Ether (ETH) was a security.

The comment caught the attention of Udi Wertheimer, a Bitcoin Ordinals developer at Taproot Wizards, who inferred Dorsey was a “clown” in a tweet on June 6.

In response, Dorsey tweeted, “ETH is not a security? Teach me wizard,” which prompted Wertheimer to share a five-year-old video of the United States Securities Exchange CommissionChair Gary Gensler stating that ETH was now “sufficiently decentralized” and wasn’t a security.

However, Gabor Gurbacs, strategy adviser to stablecoin issuer Tether and investment management firm VanEck, weighed in on Wertheimer’s comment, stating that Ethereum’s recent transition to proof-of-stake may have re-triggered securities laws.

The online scuffle comes in light of the SEC filing lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Coinbase on June 5 and 6 for allegedly offering tokens considered to be unregistered securities.

Dorsey also tweeted and implied approval of a screenshot of a post by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong in 2015, where he referred to altcoins as a “distraction” and that Coinbase should instead “be focused” on Bitcoin.

Dorsey continued on his pro-Bitcoin tweeting streak and retweeted a video of Jack Mallers — CEO of Bitcoin Lightning application Strike — calling out Armstrong for choosing to prioritize altcoins over building on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

Related: Jack Dorsey tips pro-crypto candidate Robert Kennedy to win presidency

When Dorsey was in charge of Twitter in 2021 the company sold 140 Ethereum-based nonfungible tokens (NFTs) but he rejected investing in Ether at the time.

Dorsey also downplayed Ethereum’s development in August 2021 when he claimed that Ethereum alone wouldn’t be able to disrupt big tech.

Dorsey recently provided funding and became an advocate for Nostr, a decentralized “Twitter killer” network that integrates Bitcoin Lightning-based payments on the “Damus” platform.

Magazine: Crypto regulation — Does SEC Chair Gary Gensler have the final say?

Bitget Re-Launches UK Website, Expanding Access to Digital Assets for British Users

Decentralized Twitter alternative goes live on Apple’s App Store

The Damus app is powered by Nostr which uses decentralized relays to distribute end-to-end encrypted messages.

Damus, a so-called “Twitter killer” built on a decentralized network has been approved on the Apple App Store.

The Damus team confirmed the approval to its 11,500 Twitter followers on Jan. 31, following what it claims was at least three rejections from the Big Tech player.

Shortly after, Twitter co-founder and Nostr contributor Jack Dorsey shared the news with his 6.5 million followers, with the entrepreneur labeling it as a “milestone” moment for open source protocols:

The app dubs itself the “social network you control” and is a messaging service built on Nostr — a decentralized network enabling encrypted, end-to-end private messaging, among other things.

It plans to become a social media platform with uncensored content. It also has built-in payments through the Bitcoin (BTC) layer-2 Lightning network according to a Jan. 27 post from Protos.

No servers run the network. Instead, Nostr utilizes decentralized relays to distribute messages.

Nostr developers are also focused on using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network to prevent Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) spam attacks on the Damus app.

The User Interface of Damus displayed on an iPhone. Source: Github

There have been 44 different software developers who have contributed to the code for the Damus web app, according to the team’s GitHub page.

Getting Damus on the Apple App Store didn’t come without issues though.

The Damus Twitter page posted that it had failed in at least three attempts before finally being approved:

One of Nostr’s core developers, William Casarin also shared some frustration on his personal Twitter account, stating that it would be a “shame” if Apple users couldn’t use Nostr natively.

Related: An inside look at the moral and technical considerations of crypto social media

While the exact partnership between Dorsey and Nostr isn’t known, the billionaire entrepreneur sent over 14 BTC — worth about $250,000 at the time — in mid-December to help the Nostr developer team.

While the news appeared to have increased awareness of the application amongst the Bitcoin community, other high-profile figures have tested out the Damus app too.

Amongst those include Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden and pro-crypto U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis.

At the time of writing, the Damus web app has run into problems. A warning message on the site homepage reads:

“Damus Web is down because there is someone trying to exploit browser loopholes to steal private keys. I would not recommend using a web client at this time. Damus iOS is not affected.”

Bitget Re-Launches UK Website, Expanding Access to Digital Assets for British Users