Well, the phone's hardware is optimized to support decentralized apps (dApps), and there's a built in 'universal wallet' to support storing your cryptocurrencies. Head of the project at HTC Phil Chen tells TheNextWeb;
“Through Exodus, we are excited to be supporting underlying protocols such as Bitcoin, Lightning Networks, Ethereum, Dfinity, and more. We would like to support the entire blockchain ecosystem, and in the next few months we’ll be announcing many more exciting partnerships together.”
Previously, Chen was heading up HTC's Virtual Reality headset project.
Here's where things get a bit murky in my opinion - many are saying these phones could come to rival Ledger and Trezor for hardware based 'cold storage'. But it's important to remember - a phone connected to the internet, running Android OS, should not be considered an alternative or an equally secure storage method to an offline device. In fact, i'll bet that these phones which double as a cryptocurrency wallet will become a prime target for attacks, and hope HTC is aware of this when developing it.
Until I can hold one in my hand and see if this 'optimized' blockchain phone's performance can really do anything other phones can't do with the right software, i'm undecided on if this is worth being excited for or not. But i'm definitely curious to find out.
Author: Adam Lee
Asia News Desk
