Blockchain technology has changed the world we live in, a technology that is decentralized and basically in the hands of the people. Blockchain technology consists of distributed ledger involving features like immutability, security, encryption, peer to peer network, transparency, and many more. The data with blockchain is available to everyone, the information cannot be manipulated by anyone and it eliminates the need for intermediaries.

There is so much more that blockchain technology can be applied for than just cryptocurrency, finance, or building applications. 

In this blog, we are going to talk about Blockchain smartphones and its perk, however, the specifications and functions of the blockchain smartphone depends and would differ on the phone you purchase.

Blockchain Smartphone

A blockchain smartphone is a phone that provides pre-installed applications and processing power for accessibility, security, and convenience for users.

The services that we receive from regular smartphones are associated with giving away our identities and personal information. Many applications like Google or Facebook are free services but on the contrary, with these applications, we are trading our data such as email id, name, phone numbers, location, and so forth. To many people it may look like giving basic information, however, what we don’t understand is that all these little information builds up into being a much bigger picture. However, many blockchain smartphones enable the user to keep possession of their data and in a secure manner.

As Phil Chen, Decentralized Chief Officer at HTC says, “If you think about the agricultural revolution with real estate property, and the industrial revolution with intellectual property, and we’ve gone this far into the information age and still people don’t think their data is worth anything.”

Also Read, Application of Blockchain

Advantages of Blockchain Smartphone

1. Blockchain-based smartphones comparatively provide more security due to its built-in hardware wallet.
2. It enables offline safety and security for storage or digital information on your blockchain smartphone, for instance, many users store cryptocurrency private keys.
3. Using a hardware wallet can be expensive while blockchain smartphones can cut that expense and help save.
4. Unlike hardware wallets, blockchain smartphones are portable meaning you could carry your cold storage with you all the time and use it whenever you want.
5. Blockchain smartphone facilitates Dapps on mobile as a built-in function.
6. Access to dapp on a regular basis can be beneficial for factors such as sending and earning crypto, non-fungible tokens storage, secret sharing, and censorship-resistant communication.
7. With blockchain smartphones, the user can directly pay into DApps through a cold wallet.
8. Blockchain smartphone facilitates you to make transactions with cryptocurrency anywhere in the world.

So what makes the blockchain phone and regular phone different?

The users can download the blockchain-based apps even on regular smartphones, so what is that makes it different? A blockchain smartphone enables the users to easily participate in the cryptocurrency space as it is already configured as a node, also it is much more secure and convenient than the regular phones.

What if your phone gets lost or stolen? 

As Chen rightly points out, “Right now, all your wealth is online, stored in some centralized server. We are at least spreading the risk with blockchain phones, there’s no one failure point that gives you access to digitally rob 150 million people; if you want to rob someone you have to physically rob them.” 

However, with regular phones, you can always back up and restore your data which with blockchain may seem a little daunting however HTC has come up with Social Key Recovery that allows to share or split your keys amongst the five people that you trust so as to recover from them after losing. The trick here is that a password is required to access but with cold storage you would need to recover the device.

Also Read, Pros And Cons Of Blockchain-Powered Payment Industry

List of Blockchain Smartphones

1. Samsung Galaxy S10

Samsung Galaxy S10 than being called a blockchain smartphone is more of a conventional phone with added features. It has a built-in cold wallet which is a part of the Knox security suite and the cryptocurrency wallet on the phone will support up to 33 tokens. Through the Samsung Galaxy store, it facilitates access to Dapps. Samsung’s core component and integration are its Samsung Blockchain Keystore - the Keystore “puts consumers in control of their data,” with the use of an isolated Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), while the TEE ensures the isolation and safety of the private keys on the device.

2. HTC Exodus

HTC Exodus is an Android-based operating system that consists of built-in hardware and access to Dapp. It offers a secure system including storage and transactions of cryptocurrencies. The smartphone provides a pre-installed cryptocurrency wallet called Zion wallet that facilitates hardware wallet and cryptocurrency storage. The Zion is a combination of exchange, the marketplace, Dapp portal, crypto collectible wallet, and processor for payments. HTC Exodus also has a social key recovery system meaning you can share your recovery details with a trusted person through downloading a key management app consisting of a sharing algorithm to send the information to the trusted one and recovering it. As this system is for recovery,  a biometric or password is included so that none can make any transactions behind your back.

3. Sirin Labs Finney

Finney is a blockchain smartphone oriented for security and aiming to be an all-in-one blockchain and cryptocurrency smartphone that is powered by Sirin Labs. It consists of built-in cryptocurrency exchange, cold storage, and access to Dapps. 

Zvika Landau, Co-CEO of Sirin Labs explained, 

“The user experience we want is one that is so simple, you won’t need to understand how blockchain technology works, you won’t need to understand how to sign a transaction, or what happens in the background at the time.”