HTC Exodus 1 - world’s first Blockchain based smartphone is here

Global smartphone manufacturer HTC has unveiled its latest smartphone, Exodus 1, which is based on the revolutionary blockchain technology. It is the latest attempt by the company, which has been incurring massive losses in the past few years, to gain create hype and gain market share.

HTC has developed its own cryptocurrency based wallet named Zion which enables the smartphone to act as a hardware crypto wallet. The Exodus 1 achieves this using an isolated area on the phone's chip which works independently of the Android OS. This technology is made available by Softbank's Arm Holdings which is responsible for the user's safety and security.

“Think of it as a micro OS that runs in parallel with Android,” Phil Chen, HTC's decentralized chief told CNBC."It basically is a wallet, but the wallet, what it does is hold your private keys.” These so-called "Private Keys" are simple lines of code which are only known to the owner and allow secure access to their funds. Chen further said that the advantage of keeping this part of the phone separate from Android was that Google's OS is "fundamentally insecure with a centralized system and storing cryptocurrency on Android would make it for vulnerable to hackers."

He went on to talk about the importance of using blockchain technology in a phone and insisted that it would strengthen the privacy and the security of the assets of a user. In the long run, this might help protect the identity and data of the user. The blockchain, in brief, is a digital ledger used to record cryptocurrency transactions and other associated data across a secure distributed network.

Chen further added that “The dominant companies in our world today are Google and Facebook, and in China, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, because they own basically own all our data. And the reason why you do a blockchain phone is ... for everybody just to own their own keys. Everything starts there. When you start owning your own keys, then you can start owning your own digital identity, then you can start to own data.”


The Exodus 1 will run applications in a decentralized manner and will use programs based on the robust blockchain technology. Its Social Key Recovery feature will help the user in getting back access to their funds in case they lose their private key using selected contacts. The smartphone sports a 6 inch Quad HD+ display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor under the hood coupled with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. The phone runs Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box with support for "Zion wallet".

When it comes to optics, the Exodus 1 has a 16-megapixel dual rear camera setup with the ability to record 4K videos at 60 FPS. It also sports an 8-megapixel dual camera setup on the front for selfies. Other specifications include a 3500 mAh battery, IP68 water, dust resistant rating and a futuristic-looking transparent glass back.

The Exodus 1 can only be brought with Bitcoin or Ethreum for a price of 0.15 BTH or 4.78 ETH which is roughly around $960.This puts it in the competition alongside the iPhone XS and the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, but the security offered by the blockchain technology makes it unique. It is currently up for preorders on the HTC Exodus website and is available in 34 countries with shipping starting in December.