HTC's next smartphone is for you if you own crypto currency

On Saturday at a crypto conference in New York, HTC's Phil Chen announced that HTC will bring a low-cost version of its blockchain phone, the EXODUS 1s. The device will be able to act as a full node for the Bitcoin network, meaning customers will store the entire block chain's data on their devices. The company will also launch an SDK for its Zion Vault HTC's crypto wallet app. HTC also has ambitious plans to open-source the code behind its social key recovery mechanism. The phone will available by the end of Q3. He further added that "It is going to be a lot cheaper, it will a lot more accessible". He said the device will retail for between $250 and $300.

He further explained that the company saw it as a really important piece of the pie, for the Bitcoin ecosystem. We think that is foundational to the whole decentralized internet and just the whole fundamental premise. He said, If you don't own your keys, you don't own your Bitcoin, you don't own your crypto. He believes that smartphones today are capable of handling the technology, with the decreasing price of processing chips and storage media it is becoming constantly cheaper and more efficient. We expect that phones will be powerful enough.

"The bitcoin blockchain is about 200 [gigabytes], and it's growing about 60 gigs per year. And those numbers are reasonable to hold on a smartphone. Imagine the iPod with 256 gigs ... of course, the music fan wants to keep the whole music library but the crypto fan wants to keep the whole bitcoin blockchain." I think running light nodes, like Ethereum for example, is definitely doable, but it all depends on the specs.
Its new 1st is seen as a trendsetter for many as a contributor to the broader crypto market. The company would continue to support its existing EXODUS 1 product and will add an Etherscan widget for customers to explore the Ethereum blockchain and support for further non-fungible tokens.