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HTC's blockchain-powered Exodus smartphone is a risky bet that needs to pay off
In May, HTC first announced that it was working on a blockchain-powered smartphone called the Exodus. The news came as one of the company's more intriguing projects after a poor start to the year. Last year, HTC shipped over 2 million products in Q1. This year, it shipped only 630,000 products in Q1, according to numbers from IDC.
HTC is in pretty poor shape 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 down 68 percent, according to the company. Its latest flagship, the U12 Plus, has received largely negative reviews over its odd solid-state buttons and software bugs.
It's a less than stellar time for blockchain, as well. Cryptocurrency prices are low, and last month, bitcoin was tied to price manipulation in a report from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Considering HTC's financial situation, there's a lot at stake with the Exodus phone. Now we have details from HTC's Phil Chen about when we can expect the phone to be released and an estimate on how much it might cost. Although Chen was vague on specifics, he told The Verge that we can expect the phone around the end of this year and we can expect a price announcement by the end of Q3. When I mentioned that the world's first blockchain-powered phone called Finney, created by Sirin Labs, costs $1000, Chen said the price of Exodus would be "comparable."
And it comes with CryptoKitties!
See also: Wikileaks breeds and sells Cryptokitties, gifts them to Trump and Clinton
Previously: HTC Announces a "Blockchain-Powered" Smartphone
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:53AM (3 children)
Just read this part:
So it's a phone that will act as a Bitcoin/Ethereum wallet. Aka a security risk and something not anywhere near as useful as the contactless Apple Pay or the Android equivalent. And maybe it or another phone will be used to mine cryptocurrency in the future. Oh and it has those Cryptokitties, which I only have heard about because Julian Assange tried to use them to troll and bust through the Wikileaks payment blockade.
It's just as fucked up as your gut reaction told you. I can't even.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @01:45PM (2 children)
In which way is a Bitcoin or Ethereum wallet a security risk?
I mean, I get the risk of losing any money you hold there just by Bitcoin/Ethereum losing its value. But that's just a financial risk, not a security risk (in the sense usually used when referring to devices; of course you may risk your financial security if you put too much money into cryptocurrencies).
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday July 12 2018, @01:56PM (1 child)
Risk of losing the phone, the phone being hacked, etc. leading to loss of cryptocurrency.
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(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 12 2018, @08:04PM
Losing your phone by itself is not a security risk. And if it makes you lose your cryptocoin, then you apparently didn't do proper backups, nor did you write down your recovery phrase on paper stored at a secure location (the recovery phras is all that's needed to recreate the wallet).
Your phone getting hacked is of course a problem of security, but unless it's the wallet itself that is used to hack it, there's no added security risk due to the wallet. And if you you're not silly enough to store your savings on the phone, your loss of cryptocurrency should be quite limited anyway.
Your online banking account surely would be a much more attractive target to the phone hackers.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.