The bitcoin community isn't too happy about Apple banning the last available bitcoin wallet from its App Store. Many of those who truly believe in the digital currency are now smashing their iPhones in protest of Apple's policy – and in the hopes of winning a free Android phone.

These rather amusing protests show just how much bitcoin means to the true believers, but it also highlights the tension between these zealots and the everyday world. Apple's ban may be a response to uncertainty over how government regulators will treat the digital currency.

Apple banned the popular Blockchain wallet yesterday, and the protest started very early this morning when, on the popular discussion site reddit, someone named "round-peg" promised to hand out Nexus 5 phones to people who posted videos of themselves smashing working iPhones – one phone for every 100 up-votes on the site. The post was quickly up-voted to the front of reddit, and then removed, apparently for violating reddit's policy, which prohibits reddit vote manipulation.

The first person to do it was Jeremy – a missionary on furlough from Argentina, who asked that we not use his last name. He smashed his iPhone with a steel bar, whispering as he did it because it was the middle of the night, and he didn't want to wake up his wife and kids. "Go bitcoin. Down with Apple," he says after obliterating the device:

Though he's suffering from a cold, the offer was enough to get Ryan, a computer network engineer, to drive out to a Dallas range and shoot up his iPhone with a rifle:

Ryan hasn't received confirmation that he'll actually get a Nexus, but he says that "round-peg" has put $2,000 in escrow to pay for the phones, and he believes that one will show up. Even if it doesn't, he hopes the attention will draw viewers to his YouTube channel – and send a message to Apple. "I use a lot of their products, but it seemed like kind of a bunk deal," he says of the bitcoin wallet ban.

Apple hasn't commented on why it's not allowing bitcoin wallets in its App Store, but many think the company may be nervous about the regulatory requirements surrounding bitcoin, or that Apple sees the nascent peer-to-peer payment system as a competitor to iTunes. Previously, the company had pulled another wallet built by Blockchain's biggest competitor, Coinbase.

Reached later this morning, "round-peg" said "6 or 7," videos have now been posted. "The community is really rallying though – which is great. We got words of encouragement from people all over the world," said Nicolas Cary, Blockchain's CEO, via instant message.

There's encouragement, and then there's taking a machete to an iPhone: