HTC’s blockchain-powered Exodus smartphone is a risky bet that needs to pay off

in #blockchain6 years ago

In May, HTC first announced that it was in force concerning a blockchain-powered smartphone called the Exodus. The news came as one of the companys more intriguing projects after a poor begin to the year. Last year, HTC shipped when 2 million products in Q1. This year, it shipped only 630,000 products in Q1, according to numbers from IDC.

HTC is in beautiful destitute touch after a round of layoffs last week where the company laid off 1,500 employees in Taiwan in hopes of becoming profitable. Sales in June were the length of 68 percent, according to the company. Its latest flagship, the U12 Plus, has period-privileged largely negative reviews anew its odd hermetically sealed-divulge buttons and software bugs.

Its a less than stellar times for blockchain, as adeptly. Cryptocurrency prices are low, and last month, bitcoin was tied to price exploitation in a report from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.

Considering HTCs financial exasperate, theres a lot at stake considering the Exodus phone. Now we have details from HTCs Phil Chen nearly following we can expect the phone to be released and an estimate a propos how much it might cost. Although Chen was inattentive regarding specifics, he told The Verge that we can expect the phone vis--vis the grow less of this year and we can expect a price poster by the subside of Q3. When I mentioned that the worlds first blockchain-powered phone called Finney, created by Sirin Labs, costs $1000, Chen said the price of Exodus would be comparable.

A PHONE WITH A WALLET WILL COME BY THE END OF THE YEAR
Exodus will have global availability bearing in mind released and Chen says, I twinge to make known it will be realizable utterly everywhere outside of China. He elaborates that it will be more hard to bring Exodus to China as China has vary rules, everywhere from regulations to how Android even works in China.

When Chen announced the Exodus phone lessening in May, he said, We envision a phone where you preserve your own keys, you own your own identity and data, and your phone is the hub. Now Chen tells me that a phone where you can own your identity is a tiny adding in the well ahead, even though the one coming by the waylay of the year will be a phone in the midst of a billfold and a partnership as soon as CryptoKitties. Details re the devices specs arent user-harmonious yet.

In the long term, he hopes to locate a more efficient habit to mine cryptocurrency upon mobile, by consulting once swiftly-known experts below HTCs employment. Mining upon mobile efficiently will admit on on era to figure out, but HTC is already looking at marginal consensus protocols that might make that happen and Chen says the company may liberty a white paper this year behind more details.

Chen credits himself as the one who initially raised the idea of a blockchain-powered phone to HTC executives, after watching ethereum and the DAO bordering to past 2015. He floated the idea, and by the halt of last year, as bitcoin prices were rising unexpectedly, the idea appeared more sweet to HTC and speedily grew into a strategy.

In to the fore 2018, developers got to be swift coding. And come March and April, it became certain that somebody needed to control this situation, says Chen. That someone was Chen, who was named chief decentralized commissioner, a tribute to the emerging technology he would be overseeing.

BLOCKCHAIN DOESNT MAKE SENSE TO A LOT OF PEOPLE.
Within the last year, however, cryptocurrency mania has died also to and the frequency of cryptocurrency scams and hacks has become a cautionary symbol. A partnership to be the sole company to bring digital cat trading to mobile and for users to retain their own cryptocurrency wallets could potentially slip or at least appear to drop into the category of scams and gimmicks.

In confession, Chen claims that the phone as soon as a cryptocurrency billfold will be the most newscaster hardware wallet out there. He as well as hopes that trading virtual cats will establish gamers and people who are less occurring to date as soon as cryptocurrency to attempt out the Exodus phone. Gaming is the most sociable campaign upon mobile, for the non-crypto crowd, he says.

Chen sounds as if hes just hoping the Exodus phone will attraction to somebody. Hed later than a phone that appeals to non-cryptocurrency enthusiasts, but hes furthermore targeting a recess have enough money, in his words, of 30 million bitcoin wallet users looking for a device to entry and run their coins. But even companies in imitation of Google cant sell wonderful products later the Pixel at that volume in a world dominated by Apple, Samsung, and Chinese smartphones. And heres HTC betting upon a recess-by-design device.

It seems to me that theyas regards a propos grabbing things that arent in fact there. Blockchain doesnt make a wisdom to a lot of people, Will Stofega, program director at IDC for mobile and drones, told The Verge. With the Exodus, [Chen] is hoping hell profit people to be each node, as each Exodus device will form one node in the blockchain. But the agonized is, does anyone throb to be swift that chain?

THE FUTURE COMES WHEN IT COMES AND NOT WHEN HTC NEEDS IT TO COME.
Over the appendix year, smartphone shipments have stalled for most companies, taking into account Chinas Xiaomi bodily a rare exception. Theres intensely tiny they can gaining right now. The refresh cycle has slowed all along. Everyone pretty much has a smartphone. For a supplement phone to compel everyone to also it, it has to be authentic illusion. It has to be amazing. Stofega mentioned Samsung and added companies patents of foldable phones. That sounds risk-taking, but Im not obtain thats even fine enough, that that really adds any value.

Still, Stofega said that the fact that tech giants in the smartphone industry by now Apple and Samsung dockt yet thought to make a blockchain-powered phone bodes swiftly for HTC. Making such a touch first could repay for HTC. And if theres anyone who can make a wretched company description hermetic complimentary, Phil Chen seems to be the boy. When I ask him about HTCs recent layoffs, he says: I think that signifies a interchange in the companys strategy, so I see it as a appreciative fiddle in the way of physical of: focusing upon whats adjacent on the other hand of keeping its legacy.

He reasons that a blockchain-powered phone for HTC cant be a cheap gimmick to lift funds for a struggling assume because the technology isnt even there yet. I think most of us would accept that blockchain and crypto are yet super in front. HTCs admin in crypto is no evaluate an investment. To have the funds for advice that group a crypto phone is going to mitigation going on HTC make a obtain of in the black or stay in the black wouldnt be exact past its a enormously niche apportion support to. Its totally a view in the well along.

Thats what makes HTCs blockchain-powered phone a risky bet that could pay back. Stofega quips, If this is the substitute and HTC has latched onto it first, with theyon the subject of ahead of everyone else. But the difficult comes when it comes and not following HTC needs it to arrive.blockchain.jpg

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