The British blockchain startup Electroneum launched an affordable smartphone with several cryptocurrency features. The 80 dollar M1 is running on Android, and has built-in mining capabilities. People using the phone make approximately 3 dollars per month in electroneum (ETN). The phone was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona.
The M1 is designed to keep costs as low as possible, while still providing key features also available on expensive smartphones. The M1 has dual SIM functionality, 4G connectivity, 8GB of storage and two cameras.
The key feature is of course the have the phone function as a mobile wallet and bank account, using ETN as the main currency. The built-in mining rewards can be used to buy mobile data, airtime or other online purchases. For now the phone is only available in South Africa.
CEO Richard Ells from Electroneum sees the introduction of their own phone as a major step. “We carried out a large survey in the country [South Africa] and found that 97% of those who responded said they would like to use ETN to pay for mobile airtime and data. This gives ETN the real-world value that it needs to achieve true mass adoption.”
Electroneum is a digital payments ecosystem for mainly mobile payments and aimed at the unbanked. Its focus is on driving crypto adoption for the purchase of everyday items like bread, milk and fruit. They currently have an app available for Android and iOS, which also allows virtual mining.
Currently ETN is valued at $0.007282, which is 7 percent lower compared with yesterday. With a market cap of 65 million dollars, Electroneum is currently the 63rd biggest crypto project on the market.
Posted from my blog: https://www.nederob.nl/2019/02/26/electroneum-launches-cheap-crypto-friendly-smartphone/