My attempt to protect users from scam apps on the @AppStore has gotten my Apple Developer account flagged for termination - ironically, for "dishonest activity".
Unless it's reversed by June 30, all new installs of Sparrow Wallet will fail, and development on macOS will end.
The context: since 2023, more than a dozen fake "Sparrow" apps have appeared on the App Store, as recently as April this year. Users have contacted me after losing their savings, in some cases their life savings, to these impersonators.
I'm the developer of the real Sparrow Wallet, a desktop app, and I hold the registered US trademarks for the name and logo. I have publicly warned @Apple and the community about these fake apps from early 2024, but they keep appearing.
The app @Apple flagged was a placeholder that was never published. Its only purpose was to warn users that Sparrow is desktop-only and that other "Sparrow" apps aren't mine. This approach may have been misguided, but there was nothing dishonest about it.
I'm confident this is an automated misclassification that Apple would reverse on review - but I may be terminated before a human ever looks at my appeal. The cost would fall on @Apple's own users: blocked installs and no updates for a tool people rely on, which opens the door for more fakes.
If you value Sparrow, a repost would help. @AppleSupport
Bitcoin isn't real! It's not physical!
Yeah? Neither is the number seven, but I bet you'd notice if your bank balance dropped by seven figures.
Let me break the spell for you: money has never been "real."
Money is a collective hallucination—a social construct we all agree to pretend exists so we don't have to barter chickens for dental work.
Gold wasn't money because it fell from heaven with "LEGAL TENDER" stamped on it.
We picked gold because it was the least-bad physical object that checked the boxes:
- Scarce
- Durable
- Divisible
- Portable
- Verifiable
It was the analog solution to our shared idea.
But here's the thing about analog: it's slow, heavy, and requires armed guards.
And here's the thing about humans: we engineer better tools.
We went from abacus to iPhone. From carrier pigeons to satellites.
From gold bars locked in vaults to Bitcoin—verified by thermodynamics, secured by energy, and transmitted at the speed of light.
Bitcoin is the digital versioin of money. Just like X is the digital version of town hall.
Gold was the best we could do for many centuries.
Bitcoin is what we can do now that we have cryptography, distributed consensus, and proof-of-work anchored in physics.
Your grandpa trusted gold because he could hold it.
You trust Bitcoin because you can verify it.
One required faith in a metal. The other requires faith in math.
Guess which one has never been debased, diluted, or confiscated by executive order?
The concept of money is a human mental construct.
Always has been. Always will be.
The only question is: do you want your construct built on scarcity enforced by governments—or scarcity enforced by code?
Gold was monetary technology for the industrial age. Bitcoin is monetary technology for the information age.
Welcome to the upgrade.
@BorisJohnson Thats funny, I’m sure you accepted cash, bitcoin and gold for any private events you do. A Ponzi scheme you’re happy to be a part of then?