HTC develops an Android smartphone to work with blockchain technology, the one behind the Bitcoin virtual coin, writes The Next Web.
The phone, called Exodus, will have a digital wallet and a secure hardware encase that will support cryptocurrency and decentralized applications.
Phil Chen, the virtual reality headset maker of HTC Vive, has been nominated responsible for all blockchain initiatives and blockchain technologies in the Taiwanese company.
Chen said that Exodus will support both Bitcoin and Ethereum, Lightning Networks, Dfinity and others.
"We want to support the whole blockchain ecosystem and in the coming months we will announce many other thrilling partnerships together," Phil Chen said.
HTC also considers phone lovers to be able to pay in virtual coins. But his price was not decided.
Big issues at HTC:
HTC has major financial problems in recent years, being overtaken by Samsung and Apple in the top field and by Chinese competitors such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi on the average and cheap phones segment.
HTC sold part of its work to Google last year for $ 1.1 billion. HTC has manufactured the latest generation of Google Pixel smartphones.
It's not the first:
On the other hand, HTC is not the first company to make a phone with blockchain technology. This is Sirin Labs, it costs a thousand dollars and was announced in autumn last year. It will be available as of October. Facebook wants to launch its own virtual currency in order to facilitate money transfer between Messenger users. The Telegram chat application wants the same thing. Unlike these, however, HTC does not want to invent a new currency but builds on existing ones.